Tennisten, you're probably entirely correct. There will be plenty of people who possess all of the skill and aptitude necessary, but fall just short of the qualifications. The problem is, how do you then deal with assessing all of the extra applications that come in needing individual attention because of the reasons why they had a bad A level year? You'd probably need to quadruple the size of the respective HR departments at the FTOs and airlines involved.
It's still not on a par with the US, don't you need at least a 4 year degree to apply to any of their majors?