Hello all! Interesting day the Professional Flight Training Exhibition at LHR T5, three main points I picked up on regarding the BA FPP.
- Last year, the BA FPP program was actually short 10 pilots due to a large number failing the maths portion of the assessment. This year, CTC Wings has an agreement that, should the BA FPP yield another shortage of pilots, that Integrated Cadets of CTC may well be assigned to BA.
- I was initially under the impression that the idea behind the BA FPP was that it would recruit 400 pilots over 4 years, and this was confirmed by a British Airways pilot I spoke to today at the PFTE. However, in the CTC Wings "A Flying Start to 2014" brochure picked up today, it reads "The BA FPP will enable up to 500 aspiring airline pilots (over five years)" - Read into it what you will.
- The BA Pilot I spoke to said that the BA FPP for 2015 was "possible but not confirmed.". Yet when I spoke to a senior figure for CTC Wings, I was told that the CTC wings was "100%, definitely coming this year". Plus, BA did a presentation on the FPP - surely a bit odd if they weren't going to run it again, no?
Everything above is speculation and open to interpretation, but I feel interesting nonetheless. If you were at PFTE today, please feel free to share what you found out as well.