Hi everyone, not sure if this is much help to any of you, but I'd just like to give my experience of recruitment from summer 2008, and hopefully it will go some way to answering some of your questions;
I applied to the airline in October after leaving my last airline, and by December had an email saying I had passed the initial screening process, and to wait until after Christmas for an interview date, and in early January I had an interview on Valentine's Day. We were told at the interview, which was extremely professional - but at the same time very relaxed and friendly - that it would take about two weeks to hear from them, and what was in fact a month later, they rang to say I had the job, but not at my preferred base, so I had to turn them down. About a month after this, they said my base was recruiting, and they were sending a contract and medical forms out. I didn't find out however where the training was, at what time, or any other details such as pre-course work, until the Friday lunchtime, beginning the course the following Monday.
The training course is intense, but the trainers (there's usually two, plus people who come along to teach specific modules) throughout the five weeks are really helpful and supportive, and all the information given is really thorough, and they don't mind going over things again if people don't necessarily understand the first time. We had a great night in Manchester on our course to do our doors, smoke and ditching when we went to Cheadle.
TCX is a really friendly airline, with good money and benefits, and a very approachable management and training team. Though I can't speak for the much bigger bases, crews have merged with inevitable griping, but overwhelmingly, everyone gets along and gets the job done. Career progression at some bases, including mine, isn't so great, and that hasn't been helped by the merger, though there are opportunities to do winter work in the shops, as well as to work with recruitment or on corporate days as an ambassador. The company's biggest let-down is their organisation, the airline isn't wonderful with paperwork, there's either too much or it goes missing. But I think if that's the biggest complaint, then it's not such a bad place to work!
Only one person from this year's two initial courses were kept for my base for the winter, however almost everyone from all other years were kept on. If anyone has any questions, though it will only be on S08's information, I'll try and answer.