Straight from the top, we have been inundated with guys and girls with to quote 'commercial jet' experience. These will form the major part of the initial interviews. Monarch have and will continue to interview some TP and Military guys to add an extra dimension. I would think the first few courses starting September would be made up of mostly of type rated guys. Further courses consisting of 'other' qualified individuals.
As far as the A330 is concerned the MD has in the past stated you need at least 6 hulls to run any efficient LH program and that's where the problem lies. Monarch have so far failed to find the remaining hulls due to a number of factors, too expensive, wrong configuration etc etc. There are a lot of routes out there that could be good for us but the simple answer is we need to decide whether to invest in the extra hulls. So far and I mean a lot longer than I have been at Monarch this decision has not been made. We have used the A330 and the A300 to pick up a lot of ad hoc work. We are currently bidding to use them on the same sort of work. In all announcements from the management they have stated we are going SH schedule. However with a caveat that we will continue to keep LH in our back pocket, who knows. All I have said and will go onto say is for those joining us. Do not join thinking we will be operating a schedule LH service. As stated earlier you will be flying SH, even if we keep the A330's for the next 6-8 years. We are about to take on upwards of 100 FO's and 40 commands. This expansion is due to us increasing our SH schedule as published. Next announcement I predict will be leasing of around 6 A320 family aircraft. These will some on line next year with the new guys and will cover the new bases. Having said that I could be completely wrong and 4 lovely 330's are making their way to us
