I'd love to know what the current piloting community in EI think of that!?
Nothing surprises us anymore unfortunately. The union told them 18 months ago that we were going to be short of pilots and the company ignored them as they thought better. When the resignation letters flowed in and the guys left for BA, Virgin and the desert but the warning bells still didn't ring. We have spent the summer working a 5 on 1 off, 5 on 2 off roster. In that 5 days you can be going from middles to lates to earlies and vice versa. Lots of guys and gals calling in fatigued as a result.
The problem is management still think along civil service lines and ensure there are enough layers between them so that their heads aren't on the chopping block. I don't think there is actually anyone that has any responsibility for retention of flight deck crew. Quite amazing really.
I wouldn't get to excited about those contract jobs on offer. The experienced FO's that were hired back in for the summer recently were all ex AL (mainly captains but a few f/o's) who left on voluntary severance. As far as I know they were all contacted directly by the agencies and then word of mouth would have spread as you would expect. A 3rd party agency such as Storm or Parc is necessary to avoid a repeat of the €36m donation to the Revenue Commissioner.
They have spent the last 6 months turning really good candidates away for no good reason, and haven't filled all the seats.
Unfortunately for the people involved the training department thinks otherwise.