Is there any hope for me with BA?
--This is my first post on this forum--
Hello everyone,
After endless research and numerous visits to other aviation forums on the internet, I would like to ask the pilots/people who know how things work at British Airways on PPRuNe if there is any way for me to become a pilot for them.
First, a little background on me:
I was born in the USA and grew up in the State of Florida. Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated in airplanes (especially airliners; probably because I flew between the US and Europe many times). When I was 13 years old, my parents (who are European) decided to move back to the EU because of many reasons. I now live in northern Italy, close to the Austrian border. My parents chose this area because it is a cultural mixture between my mom's native Italy and my dad's native Germany. Unfortunately, the area I live in is practically dead in regard to aviation. Because of the mountains, there is rarely a low-flying airplane around and the local airfield is only home to mountain rescue helicopters and a few Cessnas. My computer is the only way to follow my interest...
Anyway, back to the topic: Since I have flown to/from Europe many times, I have a preference in the airlines I flew with: British Airways. I have always liked their fleet, style, image and standard of service (even in economy compared to the US carriers). So naturally I want to become a pilot for them. Through research on the internet I found out about BA's 'Sponsored Pilot Training Scheme' and thought that it would be the perfect start to a career, my alternative being going back to the US after High School (I'm currently 16) and spending a fortune on all the training - besides having to have considerably more experience to join a major airline. I also found out about this forum through my research and saw a recent post about BA sponsoring, which, as it seems, has been cancelled due to 9/11. I don't know if thats really true, since the official BA website still has all of the info. about this program on it. Now to my question: Is this program likely to be cancelled forever or will BA start it again? They will have to get pilots in the future from somewhere..
Assuming they will restart it once (if) the airline industry picks up again, do I stand a chance against all of the British people looking for the same career? The only selling points I will have on my cv are being fluent in English, German and Italian and being both US and German citizen. Do BA even hire people from different countries?
One more thing I would like to know is what the British GCSEs and GCEs are, since they are stated in the requirements on the BA website. I know that they are academic titles, but on what level? High School? University? And would they accept an Italian HS diploma?
Sorry for writing so much, I guess I get carried away every time I can write something in my native English again.
Thanks in advance,
Marco