I was ‘de-selected’ by the maths test!
I had thought that being type rated, 1500+ hours command time on the B737, 10,000 hours+ total, 5,000 hours+ jet command time on medium to heavy jets, EU citizen, CAA ATPL/JAA ATPL/FAA ATP etc; plus 13 years of photocopied training records from the various employers I have had, including a couple of flag carriers. Plus written references from my most recent of employers……
May have been some interest to Thompsonfly. Didn’t particularly want the job - the job I’ve got is OK. But for a bit of inconvenience I was hoping at least for a free go in the SIM. SIM practice is never wasted.
Trouble is I left school in the 70’s with no qualifications, bar a handful of poor grade CSE’s. Lack of maths ability didn’t stop me getting CPL and later ATPL written exams first time. But if they want experienced captains, are they going the right way about it?
Still, no use being sniffy about it. Fact is in their pilot briefing, the bit where they told us what the money is and what the rosters are like they told us that all pilots are moving over to Carmen touring rosters, i.e. start work at the beginning of a roster period with suitcase and return some days later having spend a week wondering what the rest of humanity is doing while you watch hotel porn; is not for me. I’ve wasted ears of my life and one marriage doing that.
But even if I could pass the maths and did want live in hotels half the month; after all I’m single once more and hotel porn is much better these days; one has to question the sanity of joining a large company on the bottom of the seniority list as a captain. Because in my experience, when the economy bottoms out and airlines contract the best that can happen is you keep your job and observe the world from the right seat whilst your salary dwindles, the worst that can happen is your down the road. In any case, if I were the German Chief Exec of a very large German tour operator, and had to axe 20% of group capacity, I know where I’d start.