ZAZOO,
Where ever Bransons boys want them to be put for goodness sakes I hope some of my Niger colleagues here are pilots cos its obvious whats been going on with the A340 from time and lately, that the locals are not very welcome handling their A340s and I say that with all authority.
I wonder what authority that is when on almost every A340 flight I've been on, there has been a Nigerian as part of the cockpit crew. In fact my penultimate 340 flight had a Nigerian captain and what a good job he did!!
Maybe the guys who were dropped were deemed not good enough at their interview/sim/whatever. Remember that it costs VK a lot of money to hold the assesments. How do you then explain that some got through? You should also see the number of foreigners who were also dropped.
There are quite a fair number of Nigerian Capts/FOs on the A340 fleet and they will be flying the 340's till they leave the fleet. My guess is that after that, they will be offered places on the 767 or 737.
THEY PREFERRED THE VIRGIN ATLANTIC CREW WHOM THEY PAID UNIMAGINABLE £££££ TO DO THE VIRGIN NIGERIA FLIGHTS.
Some of the crew were VS, but the majority were directly employed by VK and seconded to VS as the aircraft are still leased from and managed by VS on the UK register which is why only JAA guys could go on the 340 fleet. Were the Nigerians/Scandinavians/Germans et al VS crew before? I think not!!
SN,
Don't know what the fate of the 340 pilots will be, but as there will still be longhaul flying to be done, and VK types pilots, I guess they'll get the choice about where they go.