Aer Lingus Cadetship

[cTcPilot]

Keep an eye on the careers section of the aerlingus website guys!
New Cadetship to launch soon. Its in the final stages of been set up.
From what Ive heard in the crew rooms you will have to be an EU passport holder, have at least 2 higher subjects in an Irish Leaving cert, JAA Class 1 medical, 18-25 years of age and pay €150,000 towards your flying training along with a heavy bond and a reduced cadet salary for a few years.
http://www.aerlingus.com/careers.pilotsponsorship2010.pdf.z%%334/bump

[irish330]

Can't see this happening. Older pilots be forced to retire, fleet reduction also. And not to mention the 700 other staff being let go. Hiring new pilots doesn't seem like a runner for awhile yet.

[Grass strip basher]

150,000 Euros!!!! Bloomin' eck.... that is nuts. This must be a wind up

[MCDU2]

This has been a rumour running around for a while now. Its old news that the recently appointed head of training is a big fan of cadet programmes and has a long relationship with Jerez and Oxford. No one on the line is quite sure how it will work in practice if it in fact gets underway. The leadtime involved in getting a cadet selected and through to a CPL/IR is quite long particularly when combined with the type conversion and line training so can't see that they will be available for next summer.

We have lost a lot of pilots on the voluntary severance, mostly senior A330 captains but also some long serving f/o's. Also a number are away on special leave, others in Washington with rumours of more expansion on its way and a handful have left under their own steam for a variety of reasons but mainly due to crap rostering, poor T&C's etc. Its unclear how many will come back from special leave. Rumours are abound that when the likes of BA et all start recruiting that there will be a stampede to get out and fly heavy metal for a company that is not under constant threat of being taken over/sold and get a proper roster. Mostly these will be f/o's as the pension ties in anyone with a decent level of service.

I can't see a cadet scheme solving the shortage of crews we have at present let alone what will occur if an exodus occurs so some direct hiring will probably be necessary.

[cTcPilot]

Ruff notes from the last meeting regarding cadetship ;

Training to be carried out Integrated
Cadets to pay for own Integrated training course, ATR and Airbus type ratings
Cadets will spend 2 years on ATR with subsidery route airline before moving to airbus fleet
Cadets to be trained to be able work as flight operations officers in Dublin office so can act in 2 roles, pilot and ops officer.
Cadet pay to be no more the Irish national minimum wage during cadetship
Cadets can take 1weeks leave every 4 months of cadetship
Candidate with PPL to recieve 10% merit in final interview
Candidate who elects to take an extra Irish oral exam will recieve 6% merit.
Sponsorship / Loan. Cadets can apply for a FAS special rate technical training grant to cover up to 65% of the training costs through a bond system. Irish passport holders may only be able apply through FAS.ieMore to follow, like I said, keep an eye on the website guys and goodluck!

[kingofkabul]

Pay for integrated and two type ratings? For minimum wage? You'd have to be thick as 5hit to fall for that.

[irishone]

How will cadets go on the ATR? Aer lingus pilots don't fly them.
This has to be a rumour gone wrong!

[OpsRat]

Seems very odd.

€150,000 for training costs plus a 'heavy bond' is excessive even at current training costs. It will also be very difficult to make any kind of repayment on borrowings of that magnitude at the minimum wage, or when working as an Operations Officer.

I don't understand why anyone would gain '6% merit' for passing an additional Irish oral test and Aer Lingus have no subsidiary airlines. Aer Arann are a franchisee who are not connected to EI as far as staffing is concerned, and as far as I can see we would gain little if anything from incubating seconded EI pilots for two years. When Aer Lingus are recruiting DEP's there is usually a pretty strong feed from Arann anyway, so wheres the point entering into a formal agreement?

Also I understand that FAS grants are available to all EU citizens not just Irish passport holders.

Stranger things have happened but does not add up for me yet.

[Bingaling]

You might want to add a pinch of salt to the above rumour.

AL will be hiring but no decisions have been made as to how/when and who.

It is likely there will be some form of self sponsored cadetship but it will be a while yet.....

[Yahweh]

ctcPilot,

If those conditions are accurate which I find highly unlikely, then this has to be the crappiest scheme I've yet seen on this forum.

Why anyone would want to sign up for that would be beyond me, you'd seriously need to be as thick as **** to go for that one :}

[stevop21]

I must be missing something here.

Why the hell would anyone sign up for that?

Exactly what I was thinking. I read the thread a couple of times to check.....

[donogca]

Are the fás grants available for normal modular training?
I havent set up finance for my CPL/IR training yet which i hope to start in the new year once i finish my hour building.
Any Irish students get any finance from FáS or the any of the banks (doubtful, with the state of the country!!)? i will be looking for about €30k?
Cheers

[Bearcat]

"Candidate who elects to take an extra Irish oral exam will recieve 6% merit"

oh what a load of old tosh.........total pony droppings. MCDU has it in one.

[corsair]

Donogca the answer is no, not in a million years would FAS finance your flight training. If they did I can assure you the queue would be longer than the dole queue. I'm not sure where CTCpilot gets his information but it's all a bit implausible. The most likely scenario for Aer Lingus is a mentored self funded course with the likes FTE or OAA.

With conditions like those, Ryanair begins to look a forward thinking, benevolent employer.

But I smell a troll:hmm:

[206Fan]

CTC,

How are we suppost to keep an eye on the aerlingus website if there's nothing mentioned on the website about this Cadet Scheme. Also the link you provided is dead. I think id rather go to Uni and get in Dept than fork up that mental money their looking for the scheme.

Have to agree with Corsair on the troll remark :hmm:

[Francie81]

I didnt realise school grades came into the world of flying? I know my route and thats modular best way.

[the ace of spades]

does anyone know how the FAS special rate technical training grant to cover up to 65% of the training costs through a bond system works?

also when is the scheme expected to roll out and amount of places? with aer lingus looking to reunite with one world or join star or sky team next year this does sound like a step in the right direction for the airline. however the t's and c's mentioned above need to be heavily revised. i presume the minimum wage bit is just for while training in fte or whereever it will be.

they also found 400m down the back of a couch last week and now have over 1.4bn in the bank. dont you just wish that they would put a small amount of that money to good investment such as a part sponsored cadet scheme straight up and simple..

[shamrock83]

:ugh::ugh:

come on you realy think that fas are going to fund up to 65% for a course
that "only" costs 150k

thats the guts of 97k think its time to wake up and smell the coffee guys
fas have been all over the news of late with there dodgy bookeeping:oh:

maybe they go down the route of ctc wings crewing or sstr :eek: who knows
its all about saving money theys days

[lander66]

They want you to be on a reduced cadet salary after forking out £150K? Even if I was a millionaire I would think, something isn't right here...

[the ace of spades]

hey guys, any more news on this?? :ok:

[aviator001]

i heard from a guy on the inside the other day that this will be going ahead next year. 8-12 cadets for flight training europe by summer of next year and then 2 years on aer arann's atr's and then on to the buses....

[Love_joy]

As always in this game, there is no smoke without fire.

I don't doubt for a second that EI are looking at schemes such as this. They used to run one of the slickest cadet schemes around, and with recruitment lead times of approx 2 years via such routes - now is the time to start looking.

The one bit I don't see working is the cost. In the age of austerity, especially when Ireland is on the brink of bankruptcy itself, running a scheme so grossly overpriced just ridiculous.

Unless we have all missed the point here, and it is simply a way of lining the coffers of EI with FAS money?!?

[aviator001]

Career Directions (http://www.careerdirections.ie/CD/DBAllCareerFrame.jsp?id=192)

[the ace of spades]

it makes sense that they would be looking to go down this route. with the large number of early retirement packages going to senior captains and european rostered pilots flying a crazy roster with only 2 days off in 17 in some cases it is clear that they are becoming understaffed. i believe they have a small number of new 320s being delivered next year also.
anybody hear anything else on this lately????

[MCDU2]

Our rosters are bad but not as bad as you imply. More like 5 on 2 off with lots of minimum rest between each duty day and max days of 10-12 hours. Some folks are getting 5 or 6 days on and 1 off although not me personally. Our rosters would appear to be manually prepared irrespective of the fact that we have a computerised bidding and rostering system.

My understanding was that the new aircraft were replacing older ones. Also there are no new routes announced this winter. I have heard that the 321's are up for sale as well. Additionally over the winter there will be a reduction in the fleet with aircraft taken out on a rolling basis for long term maintenance.

Having said all of the above I think we are understaffed. As is usual at AL they have cocked up the numbers though. Although are unable to recruit until the voluntary scheme is put to bed.

[CraigyD]

Just browsing and came across this. I hope for the love of god this scheme doesn't happen. You just know there will be floods of people signing up for it though, 'living the dream'. These 'cadet' schemes are horrendous and make a mockery of our chosen profession as trainee and commercial pilots. I seriously think they must laugh in the board rooms when they come up with these schemes whilst sipping fine champagne. "what can we cut today...."

Sorry, rant over!

Craigyd

[FlexGate]

Totally agree Craig, it's an absolute disgrace that this has even been considered. It really is driving this profession down the pan...

[cliste]

I know this is a rumour network but the chances of this happening Guys , be real can't see EI adopting such a scheme .

Cliste

[aviator001]

i dont understand how this would be driving the profession down the pan.. traditionally aer lingus ran such schemes like all airlines did back in the day. the larger percentage of aer lingus current pilots are from the old cadet scheme, except they got it all handed to them for free!!
what are the alternatives? otherwise people with rich parents or kids who are good at emotional blackmail are all that will ever get to fly for airlines who recognise good training (which comes at a price). banks are not lending anymore, at least this way they will get the right people for the job based on screening to meet their requirements. thomas cook have ran it this year already. why would anybody want to spend 100k plus on flight training without some form of 'guarantee' of a job at the end of it all.
but i do agree that there a lot of pilots out there out of work at the minute. but what do you want? do you want nobody to enter into the profession any more??!!

[MCDU2]

You are getting yourself all worked up based on a rumour posted on an anonymous website that could have been written by someone who was deaf, dumb or blind and quite possibly all of the above.

As an AL pilot I can categorically state that there have been no rumours of any cadet scheme in any shape or form. Yes the current manager of training is known to have a fondness for cadet schemes and yes the majority of pilots would have been through integrated courses. But you need to balance those historical factors with the current economic climate in which AL operates. Ask yourself if AL would want to spend an awful lot of money and wait a minimum of 18 months getting a basic CPL/IR holder into the RHS of a sim to start their type rating. It will be about 2 years before they will be released to the line. Then look to its competitors who will invest little or nothing and can have any manner of medium jet rated people at the drop of a hat.

Yes we are short of pilots and yes there are more to leave and there are probably more again on special leave who won't come back to the crap T&C's on offer. BUT I do not think we can hire at all for the forseeable future due to the ongoing voluntary severence scheme. To find out when the earliest date for recruitment could be then I suggest you focus your efforts on the revenue.ie website. To help you out the VS scheme should be finished by 31st October 2010. There is a lot of press recently in respect of what can occur should you rehire following a VS scheme which you can read up on for background information. Search both the DAA and AL.

[FlexGate]

Maybe my post has been misinterpreted, so let me clear some things up. I am totally FOR cadetships/sponsorships as they offer guys that arent financially well-off to enter the profession that may not be able to otherwise. I think there is nothing wrong with having to pay for a sponsored course or cadetship provided that the terms and conditions are fair and reasonable. What I do NOT agree with is having to pay over-inflated prices (around £150k, when the likes of OAA are charging around £80k. Even they are considered to over price their product.) and to top it off, be offered a poor/mediocre salary!!!
I also believe that credit is too easy to get, especially here in the UK for pilot training. I personally know a couple of guys that have started integrated courses very recently and they are by no means rich or well-off. And I know that they have taken on the full loan, contributing nothing themselves financially to the training. Would it really be that hard to go out there in the real world and actually work for a few years, save some money and pay for a considerable part of your training whilst taking on a small loan that can be managed easily even if you fail to get an airline job straight after training?

At the end of the day, you would have to be smoking something illegal to take up a cadetship like this with the T&C's that they are offering.

[flash8]

Ask yourself if AL would want to spend an awful lot of money and wait a minimum of 18 months getting a basic CPL/IR holder into the RHS of a sim to start their type rating.

If the gist of the conditions are to be believed.. AL are forking out **** all above minimum wage during training. Hardly a fortune and then the trainee is paying for their own TR!

That said.. it can't be true... shurely shome mishtake?

[FlexGate]

If the gist of the conditions are to be believed.. AL are forking out **** all above minimum wage during training. Hardly a fortune and then the trainee is paying for their own TR!

That said.. it can't be true... shurely shome mishtake?

Let's hope that's all it is...a rumour.

[aviator001]

my understanding of it is, that you get just above min wage while in initial training at the fto, which is a lot more that most get while training. i also uderstand that the 150k covers your 100k ish atpl training and the bond for the 2 type ratings, all said, this is fine and in keeping with the current rates of training and company bonding for cadets on schemes today... the problem bit would be to then work for a reduced wage, this is not fair and not realisitc.. either bond the cadet for 100k for atpl training and take the cost of the type rating out of salary, or else bond for 150k and pay a full wage..
it is not possible for anyone in ireland today to pay a 150k loan and live on a reduced wage and it is crazy to even go down this road, sure where would they get the money, the banks are f**ked and so is the economy..

[intrested]

MCDU2

Have a friend in rostering and i wanted to checkout what you said

This is their reply

Bit short on facts are we?

Crap rosters,??? 15 pilots have worked over 800 hrs in the last 12 months out of 500, most have done 650-700, Pilots threatened strike action if the company didnt bring in a computer system, request driven system, They Union put all the yellow book rules into the system so it stops Crew getting what they want maybe you feel you should have 20 days off a period?, Now the Union want a different system,5/3 5/3 with 20 privileged days a year ( those are extra), Is this the 4th different method in 6 years? Yes terrible Company with terrible T/C 700 hrs a year 21% into my pension retire with 450k and 130k pension as some have just done, Terrible life


Based on all of that, i will ignore the selfserving rumours on here and apply when it opens, currently work 850+ and am happy to do it, keeps food on the table

[intrested]

As is usual with rostering departments , they only tell half the truth , what about duty time , even if you go in and do a london and back , it's most of the day written off . Several friends in A/L work a mish mash of 4 , 5 , 6 , days on 1,2 or 3 off . As forrest gump says , it's like a box of chocolates.

Pressman

I want that roster, over and back to London, and finish, decide what days i want off, be in one two or five a week What does 900 block hours equal in duty time ? is it more than a 39 hr week?

[intrested]

Interested,
The issue is that the "computer system, request driven system" is not computer-driven at all. The rosters are still written manually. The computer system was a cheap version lacking many of the features necessary to make it work, so hence it doesn't. Essentially, it's an electronic request system but people are not getting what they ask for. What has now been discovered by the pilots is that a manually generated roster in the guise of a "bidding system" is no better than a manually generated roster without any extra "features."
So the options are either the current set-up or a fixed pattern roster that would allow some stability and predictability. The third option of a proper computer-driven bid system would require more investment and would involve the redundancy of most/all of the crew planning department. Which explains why we still have manually generated rosters and a crew planning department appearing to obstruct all efforts at change...
As for the block hours red-herring - the roster is so Interested,
The issue is that the "computer system, request driven system" is not computer-driven at all. The rosters are still written manually. The computer system was a cheap version lacking many of the features necessary to make it work, so hence it doesn't. Essentially, it's an electronic request system but people are not getting what they ask for. What has now been discovered by the pilots is that a manually generated roster in the guise of a "bidding system" is no better than a manually generated roster without any extra "features."
So the options are either the current set-up or a fixed pattern roster that would allow some stability and predictability. The third option of a proper computer-driven bid system would require more investment and would involve the redundancy of most/all of the crew planning department. Which explains why we still have manually generated rosters and a crew planning department appearing to obstruct all efforts at change...
As for the block hours red-herring - the roster is so inefficient that average ratio of duty to block hours is 2:1.
And the pension you talk of no longer exists. The new reality is a final salary cap of €120k and you must work 40 years to get a pension of 2/3 of that.
that average ratio of duty to block hours is 2:1.
And the pension you talk of no longer exists. The new reality is a final salary cap of €120k and you must work 40 years to get a pension of 2/3 of that.

Alt

Really
So what is the system missing? Or is the real agenda to outsource the planning department? Pretty radical agenda coming from a Union,? and if you want stabilty and predictabilty why not 5/3 5/3 without the add on,s ( 20 extra days ) My friend tells me you have had a number of changes over the last 5 years, so your claim of anyone obstructing anything is a fantasy.

They also say that your claim that rosters are manually generated is a ploy to get something different, facts are you bid for 3 weeks on the Monday of 4th week rosters are run and are in the pilots hands friday of that week, can they really write rosters in 4 days? for 500 pilots all 4 of them, unless of course if some are on leave. Reality is your Union rules dictate your roster First AMS can not be coupled TFS must have a Gash day after it and so it goes on. 6 Years ago you were working 900 hrs when the roster was manually written, so explain how it has got down to 650/700, and your right from a Company view point the roster is inefficent if you are "only working" those hrs, seems to me that the Company should go back 6 years

PS my friend says to call into them and introduce yourself, and they can show you how the system works, then you will be aware of the facts:ok:

[intrested]

PressMan

Lets keep to the facts

you are entitled to 9 days off in 6 roster periods in a roster year as i read your conditions

Also you cant have a late finish and an early start into or before one day off, in fact you conditions dictate what time you can start even after 4 weeks leave, if you finished late 4 weeks ago, it means you cant have an early start ( early not before 7am) Mixing of earlys and lates, yes i have seem that late Mon/Tuesday, Gash Wed ( day for nothing) and early Thursday/Friday

As for days off you didnt bid for, seems you have to have days off, and if you bid for other days off maybe everyone is bidding for them, weekends for example

If you are getting the roster you describe then it is breaking your working conditions? and it should be easly addressed ?

O,Leary has a set pattern roster, seems EI pilots like this, maybe the way to go ?( have been there done that), Most pilots i know prefer to get their 100hrs done as quickly as possible, so long days are good, = time off

[Yahweh]

Whether or not this rumour is true (which I highly doubt) is irrelevant in my opinion.

No bank in the current climate is going to give out a loan for 150k for this type of training so for the majority of ppl funding of this magnitude will be impossible to get. It was bad enough getting loans for 90k for a career that is highly unstable at the moment and even that amount is difficult to secure with practically all banks, in fact I know of only one that even consider's it.

That will end AL's plans rather quick I would imagine.