CAT III for all pilots??

[olasek]

Someone asked me if all pilots within an airline are trained to CAT III standards, obviously assuming the the airline has CAT III operations in the first place and pilots in question are type rated on CAT III-capable aircraft. Could you give me an example of an airline that has only a fraction of its pilots CAT III certified? The idea being that an airline wants to save $$ by not having all its pilots trained for CAT III.

[Megaton]

My recollection may be flawed but I'm pretty sure when I was at FlyBE (UK regional turboprops) it took a good six months for our Cat II training. Not quite what you were asking, I know, but in a similar vein.

[gorter]

Makes no business sense not to qualify all pilots to cat 3. Rosters are released 6 weeks or so in advance. You don't know where will and where won't be in less than cat 1 conditions that far in advance (24 hours if you're really lucky) so putting together a flight crew with that short notice impossible. Only need 6 approaches in the initial conversion sim (plus 3 practice auto lands in the real a/c) and minimal recurrent training.

There are certain items that only certain pilots are qualified for in an airline such as cat C airfields and etops but not adverse weather.