Hi there,. .. .First of all, I'll apologise if I haven't done my homework and noticed if this point has been raised elsewhere.. .. .Secondly, I would like to make a point in saying that I think British Airlines are (or rather, were, before 11/09) a soft touch, or foreign airlines are far too stringent. You look at a crewing roster of any airline like easyJet or Ryanair and the like and you'll notice that there are many pilots who are not British. I'm not saying that these foreign dudes are not any less competent than a British pilot and any less deserving for a job assuming they have the right qualifications, but when a British airline can hire anybody with the appropriate licences and ratings and companies like Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa.....etc generally only employ people from their own country, the European governments need to take a shake to themselves and realise that the JAA was set up for a reason, and one of those reasons was to increase employment prospects for all European pilots.. .. .And now, that I've had my moan, I'll let somebody else get a word in.. .. .Cheers