Well boys and girls, according to my little bird (wot tells me stuff) this ain't good news for BA pilot recruitment, come to that, any recruitment.
It would seem that DEP recruitment is going to come to a grinding halt. An informed opinion would suggest that those who have done the sim may be taken on and (with luck) those who have got their sims booked will be able to do them and, hopefully, get in as well. After that it ain't looking good. Even those who have passed the selection but not not had the sim sorted out will (and I do hope I'm wrong) find themselves in a new and unimproved BA holding pool. Those people who have recently been putting off selection dates etc are probably going to be kicking themselves for a couple of years.
The TEP program will probably (and these are my thoughts only) not be affected as badly. The courses that have been booked will probably go ahead (after all, BA still does have all those pilots retiring). Apart from that, I reckon once those courses are under way we will see a bit of sucking-back on the TEP front. I'm not a betting man, but it wouldn't surprise me if we saw the non-renewal of WMU & Jerez contracts and just the 'trcicking' through of Oxford TEPs.
It seems very strange that one day BA is so desperate that the selector pilots (a few of whom I might just know, hence info) are doing 3 selection days a month, instead of their normal 1 or 2 and the next minute we are being told that there will be no more places. Surely they still need those numbers. The only thing I can think of is that some BA pilots will be 'released' from other places eg a base closure. I hope I'm wrong but I guess we'll know soon.
Keep everything crossed,
Chin, chin,
Pontius