I'd agree with (plenty of) previous posters saying that the Cadets getting mainline gigs have a reasonable amount of experience.
Didn't know about the Check Captain (must be in Sunnies) but there are two in Eastern who are Sim trainers.
There are around 50 cadets in Qlink. IMHO, you could put them against any other random 50 Qlink pilots and the standards would be indistinguishable between the two groups.
Even the last lot of Cadets who've joined have been with us for around three years. Anyone who's flown for Qlink for three years should be acceptable for SO placement.
The reason they are getting priority is because they are high quality applicants.
While I'd agree with the sentiment of that statement, my personal opinion is that QANTAS need SO's yesterday. Their pilot recruitment department is being rebuilt from scratch and in order to get some SO's in the training cycle, they're willing to accept the more senior cadets without them going through the complete recruitment process.
From what I had heard in January, the original plan was to have the 10 most senior cadets start their training in early February. (That didn't eventuate, so the plan may evolve).
ClearanceClarence1 while conditions at Emirates may be as you say (plenty of others say this elsewhere in Prune) you might not be aware of how hard guys at Qlink work:
Being rostered to fly 18-20 days out of every 28 is becoming common. Many of our overnights are "Min rest" in a very real sense. That is, five sectors on day 1, and leaving the airport at 8:30pm. Back there at 06:00am the next morning, where you typically fly another three sectors.
You try doing that six to eight times every four weeks, and you may be forgiven for thinking that conditions at Emirates are not so bad. In seven years they'll likely be a Captain over there.
IF they have the right to work in Europe, then plenty of opportunities...
Just my thoughts.
DIVOSH!