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Old 22nd Feb 2001, 23:48
  #10 (permalink)  
Pontius
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Foggy,

You're going to have to trust me on this one, but believe me, having a relative in BA (be they a Bus Driver or Base Training Captain) has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on getting into the seat of a company aircraft. People get there because they've got the stuff BA are looking for.

I don't know the facts of this case, but BA basically has 3 ways of getting to be a pilot:

The 1st is the TEP programme. She may well have qualified under that. The fact that you've got an IR doesn't mean you have an ATPL and the flying she would have done is a very good indicator of her determination to be a BA pilot.

The 2nd is the DEP programme. As you said, she probably has very little experience (all relative you understand) compared to the people in the holding pool. She would NOT have been allowed to circumvent the existing selection criteria and overtake other pilots in the pool(no matter who she works for or who her father was).....so I don't think she would have been a DEP.

The 3rd and not so often used is to take people who have self-sponsored and were tagged as being good eggs by the school (Oxford). These people do the BA selection procedure and, provided they are the calibre that BA seeks, they join at the JOC phase. Thereafter they continue as if a 'normal' TEP.

So you see this lady could have been any one of the above, but probably not a DEP. She would, therefore, not have overtaken the experienced people in the pool and would have got in by her own merits and not because she works for/was fathered by someone in BA.

In summary I would say she got the job because she deserves it and proved she was worthy. Good luck to her I say.

Pontius

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