No, you should pay more attention to detail. I said MOST of the BACE redundancies will come from crew moving to the main line or retiring. And it's hardly a great deal in the general sceme of things, is it? The BA cadets who were given posts in January/February with BACE after completing their training have been assured that their jobs are safe, so IF redundancies were obligatory, would they not be the first to go?
As for your comments on integrated v modular training, that all depends on the airline in question. The airlines who offer full sponsorship do very well out their programmes in terms of government tax cuts and, for the vast majority of cases, loyalty after the training is completed. Also, they recuperate a great deal of the costs from the cadets in the first few years of employment, in terms of reduced basic pay and having to pay back a percentage of the training costs. What's more, the cadets are bound legally to serve for a period of time, not to mention that the company can mould their crew to their particular requirements and operations manual from the very start.
Consequently, I disagree with that prediction for the future. I am quite sure that those airlines which can afford to offer sponsorships will continue to do so.
Going directly on to longhaul is not beneficial for the low hour pilot, in terms of sectors flown and experience gained in busy, short flights, but I maintain that some airlines do manage that and the end product from the excellent training is an extremely competent pilot.
