The 'announcement' of Virgin's order for A340-600s is more than a bit misleading. These aircraft were ordered in 1997/8. Since October 2001 there has been much haggling between Virgin and Airbus over whether the order would actually go ahead. The announcement this week was that the order was indeed re-confirmed, thanks to some nifty re-financing very much in Virgin's favour.. .Unfortunately (for you), these aircraft are scheduled to be one-for-one replacements for the old A340-300s, although there may be a review of that later in the delivery schedule. So there won't be any new jobs at Virgin as a result.. .However, as IFR says, there are strong signs that things are on the way to a good recovery. The beancounters are unlikely to authorise any recovery of lost capacity this year (which is why it's going to be a bad year to get a cheap holiday!), but 2003 may well see much of the capacity restored. That will mean that most of the pilot jobs lost in the last 6 months will return over the next 10-20 months, and those made unemployed will be back in the saddle again - if they want to be. A proportion won't come back, so there will be some jobs for newbies. I don't see a net increase in capacity, and thus jobs, until 2004. That's when I think that the market for you guys will start to look reasonably healthy - but there will be a huge backlog of fATPLs to clear. It may well be that by 2006 the airlines will be screaming for new pilots, as there will be a dip in the output from the FTOs over the next 2 years. However, that's 4 years away!. .So, keep your chins up but have a back up plan to keep some income coming in in the meantime.