Like 850CIT, I also attended an interview with Halstead and Lawrence in the rented meeting room in the Gherkin. I had actually applied for the cabin crew role, since they were not advertising for FOs, and the first question that Halstead asked me was why I didn't apply to be a pilot. He told me that they were recruiting for FOs and asked if I was interested.
When he told me the deal - 24k salary, 15k TR and 2 year bond, I decided there and then that it was too risky to spend 15k on a J31 TR for an unproven company especially with Halstead's history. When I asked why the TR was so expensive, the answer given was that the extra cost was to cover SEP training! How much money can you spend teaching someone how to get out of an aircraft? Interestingly the cabin crew were not to get any SEP training since the role was to be purely service, with no safety responsibility.
Anyway, I said that I would prefer to continue the interview for cabin crew, but I would like to consider taking on a flight deck role at a later date. I was in the room with them for about an hour, but I did most of the questioning. I asked Halstead some fairly probing questions about his 'Baby Branson' years and what he has been doing since. At the time, I felt that he was being quite open, but I would now certainly question how honest he actually was. It now seems that Halstead is a professional liar and his acting skills are very convincing.
Lawrence was very obviously being more guarded throughout the interview and got very uneasy when I quizzed him about the investors. He revealed very little and seemed to have trouble making eye contact with me. Halstead interrupted and said something along the lines of "the investors want to remain anonymous, but if we told you who they were, you would have heard of them." Lawrence then gave Halstead a look which was quite clearly a shut your face look and that marked the end of our discussions about the investors.
I had heard from a good source that Newcastle was likely to be their next route after a second Edinburgh flight was started, so I decided to ask about Newcastle to test their reaction. They both were very good at not revealing any surprise that I knew this, but they would not confirm or deny that my research was correct.
During the interview I also admitted that I had started and had made further contributions to the PPRuNe thread on Varsity Express. Though I didn't say this to them at the time, I was quite proud of the fact that I believe I was the first to publicly reveal that Halstead was behind VE. He seemed to appreciate my honesty and was impressed by my research, but Lawrence looked highly irritated. Maybe that was just Halstead's good acting again. I promised that I would not be posting anything further on PPRuNe, but in light of recent revelations, I have decided to break my silence.
Anyway, a couple of weeks later I got an email from 'Gilligan' (I now understand why I had so much trouble finding out his history!). It said that though they felt I interviewed "exceptionally well" for the cabin crew role, they felt that I would be better suited to a flight deck role. He wanted me to keep in touch and consider returning to interview for a flight deck position in the "near future". He was obviously desperate to get my money into his personal bank account!
Needless to say, I wasn't rushing to get back for that interview, though I was in Oxford from last weekend and I nearly booked a flight with Varsity Express on Monday morning. I'm glad I didn't because a few hours later they went bust and the following day I got a job offer from a reputable and well established operator.
Last edited by Potential; 16th Mar 2010 at 14:06.