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Old 24th Dec 2004, 09:31
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Norman Stanley Fletcher
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: 'An Airfield Somewhere in England'
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Riker

It is almost impossible to give you a general answer that would be true and accurate. It so much depends on where you are based. At LGW which is the only UK Airbus base until next month when STN starts to re-equip, we have a wide route structure which you can see by looking on easyJet.com.

I am not a recruiter so I cannot tell you exactly where you would go as a new direct-entry 319 captain, but I do know that a number of new captains who were FOs at LGW (and some other UK bases) have had to take captain's jobs in Berlin. There is likely to be a big queue of people ahead of you for a UK base. The general word from on high is that a significant number of future promotions will be to mainland Europe bases. We are in the process of re-equipping Paris with Airbuses but there is a waiting list of European pilots working in the UK who are very keen to go there. The good news is that by next summer we should have gone from 12 to 16 or 17 319s at LGW and the crews for that will have to come from somewhere (a lot will come from internal promotion). Another unknown in the equation is where the next European base will be. If it was somewhere sunny likey Barcelona or whatever then a lot of pilots would want to move internally to live there and that would create slots in the UK.

The bottom line is that there is a huge amount of luck of the draw as to where you get offered a base. As a new entrant you are at the bottom of the pile - and I think most people would agree quite rightly so. Once you are in the company, there is a mechanism for transferring base, which no one really understands how it works because it is not seniority based, but there are no guarantees. There is a genuine desire on behalf of the company to not mess people around but ultimately they have to ensure that they are correctly crewed for their operations at all their bases.

Hope that helps
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