Thanks for the reply's, but it still seems to me that they're wasting their money. There are so many pilots out there looking for work, so they can still be incredibley selective in their interviews and get just the kind of people they're looking for. Also it's been mentioned on this forum many times before that a lot of wannabes are willing to work for next to nothing (be it a bad thing or not), so they can keep the salaries low to start with. Therefore they achieve the same result and save in the region of £50 000 a head. In addition to this they dont take the gamble that their cadets will fail any exams/flight tests as they have passed them all already.
Its basic economics. I recommend all Chief Pilots recruit self sponsored pilots from now on....Starting with me.