VK Advert For B733 Drivers On PPrune
I was amazed to see Virgin Nigeria advertising for B733 drivers on Pprune. The requirements for F/Os to me is just too high. 3000 hours TT with a minimum of 1000 hours on jet to fly B733. We have guys flying B738 for Ryanair with just 250 hours. Same at Easyjet, TRSS program takes on guys with 500 hours I believe. These airlines have not Crashed so far because the F/Os has 250 hours. God knows what the requirement will be to fly the A340 for them (I will talk about that in a minute).
All pilots including F/Os must have ATPL. In return they are given nonsense salary and taxed more than ¼ of their salaries (this I can now confirm, as I have a friend inside and saw his pay slip). How on earth are guys like me supposed to apply, when are we going to get 3000 hours. The only good thing is that Arik is looking at we guys (God bless them).
Virgin Nigeria should start thinking of training the young pilots around, am sure Gecat can identify we potential Captains for them. Gecat does this for Easyjet, Ryanair etc, am sure if we are given the chance, the story will be different. Even British Airways and Virgin Atlantic (VN requires 2500TT for wide body airplanes, check the website before you reply) requirements are not that ridiculous.
I think 1000TT for F/Os makes more sense. The airline can not just keep on employing local Captains, then demote them to F/Os, and then employ Captains from Parc Aviation as contractors. Double standard I think, because am sure these Parc Aviation Captains did not go to Gecat for assessments. Am also sure they don’t have JAA licenses, they will be stupid to have it and then be tossing about with Virgin Nigeria.
Rumour is that most of the current F/Os at Virgin Nigeria cant wait to get out once airlines like Arik and Aero start coming in with their airplanes. Who will blame them, they have no carrier progression on sight. No change of seats, and no chance in hell of moving to a higher fleet (A340). As a matter of fact, rumour has it that, almost all Nigerian on the A340 are F/Os. Again they were employed as Captains then demoted to F/Os or booted out. Many I heard have been booted out. Not sure how it works anyway, but the Airbus is G registered. So these guys must have JAA licenses (unless UK CAA gives validation which I doubt) but are booted out because they are Nigerians (my speculations here, would like someone to fill us in on what happened here) ?.
Rumour also has it that because the Nigerians cant fly the Airbus, no more Nigerian is going on it (again rumour, will like someone maybe from the inside to fill us in).
Oba Idan Amani