I know three guys currently at Eastern, all of whom joined in the last twelve-ish months.
All of them were employed as flying instructors before they got into Eastern. All of them would have jumped at the chance to join Eastern (and indeed did). And yet, none of them would have been able to take three weeks leave at short notice from an employer that they'd all been with for less than a year.
And while I'm making an assumption here based on the character of the three, I'm fairly sure none of them would have risked giving up their FI jobs for the
chance to maybe get a job with Eastern after three weeks of unpaid groundschool. Time will surely answer
fair weather flier's question; will there be the same number of candidates as jobs? Or will Eastern have assumed a certain chop rate per entry?
CC, are you
sure this is an 'ideal' recruitment strategy for Eastern? Hiring the desperate and jobless lowest-hours pilots? Let's all be totally honest and totally frank here, most people both in and coming into the industry have met plots who are, sadly, commercially unemployable due personality/etc. We've all come across a gimp or two whom despite having the funds to get their ATPL really have no business doing so. There are some low-houred guys out there who don't have jobs (a.k.a 'immediately available') for a reason...
Fully concur with Duir - this kind of recruitment strategy will appeal most to the
'DBI's', who sit at home with their arse in their hands waiting for that first job to fall into their outstretched palms. As opposed to the guys and gals who have to get a job (sometimes any job, not necessarily flying) to pay the bills and feed the kids while they look.
Finally, to the chap who suggested this new policy was to weed out the undesirables before it was too late for Eastern to change their minds; what a load of
bolleux, to quote the French. Are you planning to spend the rest of your career at Eastern? You must be, given that there are plenty of airlines who fly much nicer kit to much nicer places who
don't make candidates go unpaid during training.
Bugger me, those airlines must all be chock full of w
kers...
(otherwise known as: 'how do these airlines get their selection processes to weed out numpties while Eastern can't?' - if you buy the Eastern spin, that is...)
Nope, this is a penny pinching measure if ever I saw one. Scroggs was spot on.