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Old 14th Jan 2007, 16:38
  #16 (permalink)  
calypso
 
Join Date: May 2000
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I think that you will find that while there is no shortage of low houred non rated FO's in Spain (and BTW most of them will not speak english to a level required by a UK airline). There are very few experienced FO's and hardly any captains.

Spanair only hires FO's and low experience is not a problem since they already have an stablished airline there. Vueling and Click are really strugling to find experienced pilots and they have been increasing the Terms and Conditions steadily in order to be able to crew their airplanes. Did you know that with Click you can fly 7 on 7 off? Both Click and Vueling offer bases in Barcelona which are much more appealing to expats and people are prepared to lower their income in order to live in the sun. Madrid is freezing in winter, boiling in summer and nowhere near a beach. Finally the planed growth of the low cost airlines in the next two years in Spain is in the order of 40 airframes. D you think they are going to be crewed by 200 hour guys that got their licence five years ago and haven't flown since?. This is the very unfortunate situation of most in the big pool of pilots in Spain.

Ezy is counting on taking some of the Air Madrid guys (as they have just lost their AOC) but I dare say most of them have already been offered jobs by Click and Vueling.

Ezy will pick up some very keen low houred FO's in Spain and in five years time they will make excellent captains. For the next couple of years is in the same global market place for pilots as everybody else. The proof of this is that the Madrid base remains undercrewed.
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