Chances at BA

[keendog]

I have a professional problem on which I seek some anonymous guidance.

Imagine a hypothetical 21 year old female with a 2:1 in Geography and A-Level maths.
No previous aviation experience.
She contends that, but for an accident, she would have completed her degree in Summer 1999 and thereafter joined BA as a pilot through the Cadet scheme.
Assume medical is OK but I have no other information as to her aptitude.
What, in rough terms, were her statistical chances of making it through to be taken on as an FO in late 2000 (or at all).
Thanks for your help
Keendog

[mustang1]

Her chances were at least 100:1

When BA were recruiting cadet pilots, they were taking on approximately 200 people per year, and received around 20000 applications per year. (to quote from a BA captain involved in recruitment at the time)

You would have to have done extremely well all the way through their selection tests to get selected for the scheme.

[scroggs]

This sounds like intelligence gathering for some kind of legal challenge for post-accident earnings compensation (especially as keendog is a barrister). If so, it is misplaced - most of the contributors to this forum are in no place to comment on BA's recruiting procedures and policies before 2001, and their opinions would have no weight in any legal procedure.

Unless you give more information about your reasons for asking this question, you are unlikely to receive any useful information in return.

Scroggs

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

It was incredibly difficult to win a place on the BA cadet scheme at that time. Although they did take people from a wide ranging background each one had some serious credentials and would admit to have had being very lucky.

Any old grade A-level maths and a 2:1 degree from somewhere red-brick or less would have not been at all impressive compared to many applicants. I'd say the 100:1 odds are plausible if you want to apply an arbritrary guesstimate. Those being the odds if her application had made the first hurdle by being accepted for interview and testing.

A degree and A-level Maths would have got her to the point of being able to fill out the application form. However, many who fill out the form still were not judged as being worthy of calling for testing. Therefore the real odds are somewhat greater than 100:1.

Cheers,

WWW

[mad_jock]

I think the year I applied (1993) they posted 50000 application forms recieved back 25000 took 5000 to Cranebank for applitude tests 500 for interview and 200 were awarded.

So 0.4% of the people who phoned

So in fact she has a higher chance of getting cancer than she did of working for BA.

MJ

[keendog]

Scroggs is right.
I am intelligence gathering, but not in the sense that I expect useable answers.
I simply wish to get a view of whether my hunch is right that this individual (who did not have A level Maths) would have faced stiff competition.
I a faced with "expert" evidence (from someone with no particular aviation experience) that, on the basis of the information I have given, she was "more likely than not" to have been an FO by the end of 2001 and thereafter have been employed by BA for life.
I do not wish to appear sneaky. I am not looking for particulars, simply a general feel for the realism of this opinion so that I can come to a view as to whether to seek alternative expert evidence of my own (which I will certainly not do through this Forum!)
I am certainly not looking for anything to "use" in any legal sense.

If my post is inappropriate then please, Scroggs, delete it and accept my apologies.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Well - its not a big secret how hard the odds were and I would hate someone to be labouring under the impression that they would have breezed into a BA cadetship.

Cheers

WWW

[scroggs]

keendog, no problem. That's really the information I was after. As you can imagine, this place has been used for less-than-scrupulous intelligence gathering before!

This young lady's chance of being an FO with BA by the end of 2001 were statistically fairly remote. As I remember (I went through - and passed - the BA selection for direct-entry pilot myself in 1998), A-level maths was not a requirement for cadets, but it may have improved her chances a little. If she possessed the minimum educational, age and other requirements, which should be easy to establish, she would have been invited to apply on BA's standard application form. This collected a fair amount of personal information, and required essay-type answers to five questions. These essays were crucial to a candidate's chances of being invited for interview. I believe that the ratio of applicants to interviewees was in the range of at least a thousand to one for most of the period in question.

The interview procedure covered two days, and included several examinations (maths, verbal reasoning, psychological profiling etc.), plus a number of group exercises, to determine whether the individuals had the kind of personality, business awareness, team spirit and determination that BA felt was incumbent in their pilot group. The ratio of failure to success at this stage was 10 to 1 or greater.

Success at interview did not mean that the job was in the bag. I don't remember what aptitude testing BA carried out (for me it was a simulator flight, but that would have been inappropriate for ab-initio cadets), but it would have had an inherent chance of failure - though I can't quantify that. Finally, the 18-month training process from first flight to airline flight deck saw a small proportion of students wash out.

This is a very long way of explaining that mad_jock's figures are spot on, but I hope that perhaps now you can understand why. Without meeting and assessing this girl by BA's standards, it's impossible to suggest what her individual chances were, but statistically it was about 1 in 25000 against succeeding - and that's assuming she qualified to apply.

Scroggs

[NM163]

Keendog,

As I understand it and further to the previous posts, acceptance to the BA cadet scheme did not guarantee a job with BA in any event, let alone as a pilot. BA effectively had an option on your services which they could choose to exercise subject to both your performance and their requirements.

I'm sure if you delve a little further, you will find many cadets who did not go on to work for BA, and some who did not secure airline positions for several years.

[Sick Squid]

Scroggs and WWW have explained it very well. Academic qualifications are no guarantee to success in aviation, particularly on a scholarship scheme. In many ways it is the indeterminates that count and that is why most companies employ a peer-interview process either solely or in addition to the profiled objectivity that comes from psychometric and other focused testing techniques.

The mere fact the BA and other companies employ line pilots as interviewers indicates the importance they place on that element of the program. The fact they have that element in the program means it is not quantifiable by normal measures. Therefore, merely because someone ticks all the academic boxes, and even may have a great deal of enthusiasm, that in no way guarantees they possess the intangible qualities; intangible to objective measurement.

It is something that frustrates the psychologists who design the tests for pilots, that they can't nail it 100%. The fact they can't is why most of us are here.