Heh - WWW, you may have met your nemisis in ff; she's even sharper than you if you slip up on the odd redundant conditional sub-clause
Aannnyyyway.. I'm going to pitch my tent firmly(ish) in the Welshman's camp on this particular topic. The industry
is in a terrible state if you have just passed your IR. There are no jobs out there for you. Certainly not in a jet, wide or narrow, as the original poster was asking.
If someone wants to say Ryanair, or whoever, hired 5 200 hr F/Os last month, I will respond with the CAA figures for the numbers of licences issued in that particular month. Let us not bore each other ! Ratios, you see.
As to sponsorships... I must place a guy-rope of my tent on to ff's pitch. I suspect you are both right, but the majority of 'sponsorships' will be similar to the Astraeus scheme, requiring a CPL to get a look-in, whilst a few airlines will continue with ab-initio sponsorships. The company I work for is already gearing up for a new scheme, but unfortunately for those looking, they are returning to a previous system of offering them in-house to cabin crew/staff first, before looking outside.
FF is right - there are considerable benefits to the airline in offering ab-initios. They are not charities and wouldn't do it if they didn't get a reasonable return for their investment. And sticking my left leg on the other side of the fence, why bother when there are 100 new CPL holders banging on your door who've already paid for the blue book and have proved some aptitude ?
As for 200 hour longhaul pilots... well...ermm.. it's obviously possible but I wouldn't want to be that RHS on my first sector after line training when the old codger next to me croaked it on an approach into some African airfield. I don't think I'd want to be in the back either. I think I would make it my immediate business to be nowhere near that aircraft and although I know I'm being flippant about it, the serious reality is that 200 hours is not enough for 2-crew longhaul.
Fire away.