Alt Crz Green,
Chill out.
I make a simple point; the information requested on the application form is so minimal that there cannot be any meaningful way of selecting one 200hr applicant from another. As there ARE low houred guys being called up, there must be some other selection criteria being favoured. The strong suspicion is that you need to have gone to the right school(s). This is the 'network' of which I speak.
As mentioned earlier, that's fine. Except (as was my point) they bang on about equal opps and a transparent selection process. Which is clearly not the case. Its just management speak and HR drivel. I think there is very little doubt that this is the case.
If your age is to be believed, you are obviously too old to remember several FOs that EI have taken from said schools with 170hrs NOT on a cadet scheme in recent years. Just take a look at their stats.
I'm really not too sure why you contest this obvious point and get so uptight about it?
EK