Just interviewed with QR
Well, it took about 3 months but finally I got invited to interview with QR on May 9. So, it is all over so now just waiting to hear if I made it or not. The whole experience was great from start to finish. They flew me both ways business class and man, best I have every experienced and I have done this lots over the years. Air Canada is dog **** compared to this first class company just to give you an example.
Anyway, all was done in 1 day. 5 star hotel, nice. There were only 8 guys for this 1 day, less than I anticipated. Out of them only me and 1 other guy, had good jet command time, the rest, not much. Some Dash captains but only for first officer position, I think just the 2 of us for captain, me for sure. Meet and greet at 8am, then 50 question MC test in 1 hour. Test not easy, but all of us passed, but you had to know many things to pass and lots of theory of flight and other stuff. There were 2 or 3 different exams, we compared, different. They told us all immediately after exam we passed. I was then told interview in an hour, great and picked first. Interview went well, the usual stuff like tell us about company, yourself, etc. Then, lots of senerioes about situtions, lasted about 40 minutes. Nice folks, only 2 of them, one man, one woman. After interview, told me in 5 minutes I passed, and invited to sim in a few hours. Perfect, time to relax, lunch, and they off to sim. All sims were busy so they put us in 787 one pilot at a time with instructor, he played first officer and ran the box, not ideal situation but was ok. ALL hand flown, no FD, no AT, no NAV, all hand flown and raw data. Short bried before sim, wx ok, couple of approaches, some airwork, 2 ILS approaches with 1 APU fire and evacution. Thats it. Not easy jumping into new type first time, but they arent looking for you to ace flying this bird, more interested in CRM, decision making, and so on. I was a little ropy to start, but last half, did well. You must tell him exactly what you want him to say or do, or he does nothing. Remeber your check calls, and so on. Anyway, it went ok, could always do better but kept blue side up, landed nicely. He never said a word about how I did, didnt press it. So, that was the day. Was told on interview, it takes about 4 weeks just to hear if they plan to hire you, and then, weeks or longer after to get offer. Not once did they hint or tell what plane you would fly, cause they dont know it seems. They gather all the info, the chiefs get together, and decide who gets what. It all depends on timing and of course what you bring to the table. In my case, hard to say. I have pretty good B and AB time as captain, so maybe a chance to get DEC on 777 or hell, even the 787 but I dont know their policy on this or who they have to pick from. It is clear to me that they are NOT getting really high time and experienced captains from what I saw on my assessment. I thought many more pilots and guys with really high time, but not so. So I am not sure where I fit into the mix, but any job they offer would be fine, pay is basically the same but schedules would be different of course. So now, it is a waiting game, just wait and be patient, pushing them will NOT help and make it worse. So I did my best, and all I can do and see what happens. But first, you must pass your exam or you are done. If you pass it but fail your interview, one guy did, you are done. I am just glad I was called and to have the opportunity and I did enjoy the whole experience. QR staff were very friendly, on ground and in the air, and treated me with respect and kindness. Good luck to you guys who are applying.