A few things...
I'm not on Facebook at the moment, but can soon set something up if we're congregating there. Thanks Amy for setting that up
Class 1 Medical renewed today, no problems - very few hurdles left to go now... I can thoroughly recommend Dr Byrne of Skymed at Manchester Airport (and I think also Liverpool) for anyone in the neighbourhood.
DutchC/Nuttynat - the below is based on my own research and I cannot guarantee absolute accuracy, nor is this intended to represent an official view on how BA operate. I hope one of those already at BA will be able to correct any grievous errors I may have made. That said...
This is the fourth FPP intake. The original intention was to recruit 400 FPP cadets (plus 400 via DEP) over a four year period. The number of places offered this year appears to be 72 (thank you wise benefactor
), meaning an 85% success rate at interview this year, which we can add to the (I believe) 95, 72 and 48 taken in previous years (2011-12/2012-13/2013-14 -
very few CTC cadets taken to fill in the numbers in the final one of those years).
This implies that BA would still like to recruit an additional ~112 FPP candidates, assuming that their initial targets remain unchanged. The retirement age for pilots was raised from 55 to 65 in 2006, so there would have been a lull in retirements from 2006-2015 but with that standing to increase back to former levels as of next year.
This in turn suggests that the programme
may run in further years after 2016, but I certainly wouldn't rely on that at this point in time - in fact I would recommend to anyone interested that they apply as soon as possible. BA is a seniority-based organisation and as such it is in your own best interests to get on the bottom rung of the ladder on the earliest date you can. A matter of months may ultimately make the difference between getting that long-haul seat or command course one day...
One further thought. The target this year was 100 and this has certainly not been met; this is typical for the FPP. BA require a certain standard, and it simply comes down to meeting this standard in the end. It is easy to play games with numbers, but don't be tempted down this path. Strive to meet the standard, and put everything else out of your mind. Good luck!