Jobs - three threads merged.

[Tosh McCaber]

How many low hour FTPLs have managed to get a first time job with an airline since last September? Obviously, there were the few from Pprune who got jobs with Astreus. Apart from them, has anybody had success with their appplications? Anybody out there? Any statistics?

[RVR800]

There were 1152 type rated jobs lost after Sept 11th
Source : Balpa

Many now have other jobs but a sustantial No of type
rated guys are still out of work in UK add this to Europe
and we still have a problem.

SAS are laying off 100's of pilots at this time.

Sad to say the GA guys are well down the food chain

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I know of no low houred non rated guys getting jobs since Sept 11th.

Recently though I know a few people who have been taken on. They were either, ex-sponsored by an airline which was now ready to take them on, or, had a little bit of experience like 2000hrs TT and 200 turbine.

BACE (aka Brit Regional) has hired, as have Airtours (ex-cadets), Astraeus (PPRuNe cadet scheme), Excel (took some ex-Lingus cadets with little time), Go has hired some low timers that were teed up prior to Sept 11th, easyJet (a couple of CTC courses), BA (their 140odd 'frozen' cadets running photocopier drills), and of course Britannia have offered sponsorship and there is talk they will need a dozen or so new guys this Autumn.

I note that Loganair are apparently cutting one Shed and thus have 8 surplus pilots to go according to the BALPA newsletter. Other than that it all looks like an improving picture.

I expect some low time guys with very shiny shoes will get some jobs in the Autumn hiring season this year.

Instructing jobs of them there are none.

I'd get myself off to the BALPA emloyment conference imminent if I were in your shoes. I was sat there in 1998/9 and it was a useful experience - even if it was a little uncomfortable being hunted by some of the speaking delegates!

Good luck,

WWW

[jasonjdr]

Just to add to WWW's note. I know of at least 5 ex-OATS who are now with RyanAir. All low houred, and all graduated after Sept. I know because 2 were on my course. I wish them luck and every success, because I know its been a very expensive and hard route to take.

[Pin Head]

WWW,

get your facts right please.

BACE is made up of Bral and BRYMON.

Thank you.

[GolfFoxtrot]

What about the claim Oxford have made:

"At last there are signs of improvement on the job front! Presently, we have at least one airline asking for low hours pilots. In fact, we have placed nearly 30 pilots over the past two to three months with at least six different airlines."

This fairly explicit statement was taken from the, "Calling Oxford Graduates" link on their home page. If it's untrue it's a fairly blatant false advertising.

Can anyone shed any light on it, are the 30 pilots in question ex-sponsored cadets or self-improvers.

Cheers
GF

[Tosh McCaber]

Interesting. Over to you, Oxford (blue, or anone else there)? Is this info accurate? If so, how were they selected?

[Splat]

Looking forward to a reply on this. Goes against a lot of what we are being told.....

[RVR800]

It doesn't take a genius to figure that things are improving
but from very low base level - and will the improvement be
sustained?

BAs share prive dropped below a quid the other day,
oil prices up, war beckoning ... It don't look to hot to me ....

Also exactly how many of the 14,000 ATPL/FATPL pilots in the CAA stats actually fly multi-crew. I know many that have been GA for years......jam tomorrow.

Also the scenario now takes me back to the Air Europe era when airlines were cutting each others throats as capacity exceeded
demand.

We all think that its different now - but is it?

[Johnny 7]

Does the posting of 30 pilots to 6 airlines actually mean they are currently employed by those companies , or merely that they managed to get an interview ? I'm frankly surprised at these claims - even 30 interview places seems unlikely . Unless of course , these are sponsored graduates who were awaiting JOC courses or fleet assignments .

[The Boy Lard]

Rather than speculating and doing the usual rounds of "Oxford arent telling the truth/inflating figures" yadda yadda yadda why doesnt some one call Oxford and ask?

Mike Taylor is your man, then you will get it from the horses mouth rather than wishing/hoping that its rubbish....but I guess that would be too obvious....wouldnt it?

TBL:rolleyes:

[Mister Geezer]

I love to turn a negative thread into a positive one!!!! :)

The market is picking up - it might not be self evident at the moment however I would put money on things turning for the better in the next 6 months or so. that is the feedback I have received from one or two of the regional operators here in the UK.

WWW it would not surprise me in the slightest if Loganair are getting rid of a Shed, since I have been told that they intend to get rid of the WHOLE fleet...... but these gaps will be filled by Saab 340s! ;)

There are instructor jobs out there. I am getting my FI rating because I was advised by the CFI and instructors at my local Flying Club to get rated, since they said that hours would be up for grabs and they are stretched on occasions!

For some people who had graduated from Oxford it was around 8 weeks from IRT to job offers from Ryanair. They had to fit a 2 week MCC course in that time as well! :eek:

If Bush's Iraq plans come to fruition , then let's hope a short sharp operation will be all that is needed with minimal repercussions to the employment market - or we could be back to square one!

Chin up folks!

MG

[v1rotate]

I was offered a position on an F27 last year in June and subsequently did the sim check and ground school. After September 11, management put all training and hiring on hold and I went back to flying a desk and computer.

Two months ago I got a call asking me if I was still interested in the position. I said yes and now I have a Type Rating (F27), I'm low houred (411 hours) and starting line training.

The company has put on 4 F/O's on the F27 and about 5 F/o's on the Shed. There is a mixture of experience but to all, this is their first commercial airline job.

I would target all the smaller operators (Turbo Props) out there. Forget the big ones (Jet) unless you have serious experience and jet time.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Nice one skyambition.

Could you just explain to me again why a person who has aspirations to move on to better and bigger things at some stage, is automatically incapable of giving quality instruction?

I instructed for 6 years and consider myself to be quite good at it. I have never in my life given less than 100% to any of my students, or had one accuse me of sitting in the cockpit daydreaming.

However, I can tell you a story about one chap I know who really wanted to be a career instructor ... a really talented guy, who slowly lost his enthusiasm for the job due to the repeated p!ss being taken by the flying school management brigade. Round about the time our company was investigated by the IRS minimum wage compliance unit, he finally decided he'd had enough and it was time to start getting those CVs out to the airlines.

Sure there are one or two limited exceptions but on the whole, the instructing industry is completely set up for hour builders now. No normal sane person would invest that much in the qualification to work for those kind of wages forever, unless they had some other light at the end of the tunnel.

Why don't you poll the PPL holders at your flying school and ask them if they'd rather pay their current rental rates and have an up-and-coming young airline pilot sitting next to them, or have a 50 quid per hour price hike so they could be guaranteed to have 'career instructors' on the job?

[dv8]

On the Jan/Feb '02 flybe DHC8 course.
Of the 12 pilots 2 were low hours, 1 was 1000ish hours the rest were experienced pilots who lost jobs post 911.

[STANDTO]

Can someone explain to me, if we are still building extra runways at Manchester and (depending on todays demo) Stansted, and extra terminals at Heathrow, and expanding regionals such as Liverpool, and the UK government want to expand UK air travel to 'x' squillions by 2030.............

...............HOW COME THERE ARE SO MANY UNEMPLOYED PILOTS (alledgedly)????

[fibod]

Well I can think of a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it takes quite a number of years to build extra runways and terminals. Therefore, such plans are made with a long-term view. Whereas, you might have noticed, we're in a short-term industry recession.

Secondly, even in the boom hiring periods (so called pilot shortage times), there are people who 'qualify' as pilots, but holding a licence doesn’t on its own make you employable as a pilot. There are always unemployed "pilots". At them moment, when there are few vacancies, the hurdles are raised even higher than normal putting jobs out of reach of even some very employable pilots. :(

Those of us with memories long enough have seen this before. Hiring in this industry is boom and bust. Mad George permitting, things will look very differently in a years' time. That is little comfort for those who graduated from licence courses during the last 12 months with huge debts to service. But it is pretty good news for anyone entering training now; as long as they have what it takes. ;)

It's also why sponsorships are starting to happen. It takes a minimum of 18 months from commencing recruitment to start of line training. 2004 has always been flagged up as a peak retirement year. Add that to an industry recovery and the fact that there are few people entering training at the moment and you can see why airlines are putting their hands in their pockets. :D

[220@FL150]

Good day,
I was considering getting my JAR licence.
Would greatly appreciate any info on the current job market in the UK, and some recomendations as to where i could do the training required.
I currently live and work in Canada as a Captain on a twin turbine a/c.
I also have a EU passport.
Any questions you might have about the industry in Canada i'd be happy to answer.
Cheers

[SpiralDive]

Job market is fairly slow over here at the moment, although maybe better than in Canada. Sounds like you have good experience and would have a decent chance at getting employment. There hasn't been much movement at all over the last year but things are starting to show signs of picking up, and by the time you got the JAA licence things may well have improved.

Unfortunately, the tough part is getting the piece of paper. To convert a Canadian ATPL you'll have to do all of the 14 JAA examinations and, I believe, 15 hours of IR instruction although maybe someone else can confirm that. Also you'll have to do the flight tests again. Its basically the same as converting the other way its just that the exams are a lot tougher here and there's the IR instruction requirement. For an hour in a light twin you're looking at 200 quid or around 500 bucks minimum.

If you have a job I'd keep it in the meantime and look into doing a distance learning course to get the ATPL exams. They could take awhile as some of the learning objectives may not be all that closely related to practical flying.

Best of luck!

[Luke SkyToddler]

There will never be a 'pilot shortage' at the newly-qualified level, I'm firmly convinced of that.

Sure there is, periodically, more big-jet captain's jobs out there than there are suitable upgrade candicates, but that's because you can't just go and create a captain in the space of a few months (like you can a CPL/IR).

This current lull in the job market will result in another situation like the Gulf War did in the mid-90s, i.e. there'll probably be a captain shortage in 5 - 10 years time because of the total lack of recruiting from the bottom over the years previous. That 'captain shortage' in itself will no doubt be seized upon by the flying school marketing people, translated into 'pilot shortage' and sold as great news to gullible wannabes.

Unless you're in a room full of people with several thousand multi turbine hours, any discussion of pilot shortages should be treated as the utter horse sh!t that it is. It is NEVER easy to get a decent airline job with low hours unless you're sponsored, superhuman or daddy owns one :rolleyes: .

[Luke SkyToddler]

Spiraldive, mate! Where do you get your light twins from then? :eek:

It's been a long time since I saw one going out at 200 quid ... they were all around the 300 - 350 mark last time I looked :(

[BEagle]

It's not just Liverpool who're expanding - look at Brizzle International and Cardiff Wales as well! Definite expansion plans to accommodate more low-cost routes and operators and healthy growth already underway.

Until Cliff is built (sorry, lesser crested whatnots), rather than massive expansion at STN, priority should be given to improving regional airports.

Incidentally, Virgin are now recruiting again.......

[A and C]

The captain shortage is happening now , most of the UK airlines are short of first officers who have the flying experience and /or the aptitude to make captain.

This is a result of the short term thinking within the industry and I regret that I see it only getting worse ,but the job market is on the move and I see some of you getting jobs over the winter.

[A and C]

Luke

Unfortunatly you are tarred with the same brush as a large number of people who have gone before you , I have known quite a lot of people who got into the airlines by taking advantage of PPL students who did not know any better than to fly with them ( Mrs A and C was unfortunate to spend two hours and £250 with one sutch airline hopefull )

I know that there are a lot of instructors who want to get into the airlines who are doing a very good job of instructing but as always its the bad apples that get the attention.

[Flyingspaniard]

Seeing as this is an international website, its worth pointing out that there is currently recruitment campaigns going on with 3 airlines in Spain. Iberia (requires full ATPL and type rating) Air Nostrum (500hrs/No Type Rating) Binter Air (500hr ATR type rating).

Although only one of those is likely to be open to most of the people on this forum, it shows that there are low time guys being taken on out there.

This demonstrates that the industry is picking up in Spain, because as with British Airways in the UK, Iberia will dictate the hiring trends of all the other airlines.

Things are looking up.

[RVR800]

Luke is right the last time there was a pilot shortage
was 1940 - Even then many were unsuitable for the
task ie not everybody who started made the grade

There are many at the bottom of the food chain. How many
of the 14,000 pilots with CAA ATPL fATPLs in the UK have multi crew ratings ?????

A lot of Instructors who taught me to fly during the (last)
gulf war are still GA only notwithstanding their considerable investment........

[Luke SkyToddler]

Errr ... RVR ... say again ... 14,000 FATPL holders in the UK? :eek: :eek: :eek:

Or is that the full complement of 'real' ATPL and frozen ATPL holders put together?

[RVR800]

Yes it is the total

[David Balchin]

The conclusions of my own research show that the trouble facing
low hour CPL/IR MCC pilots is made much worse right now by the lack of sensible 'starter' jobs available.........now what's that mean?
Well when I look at my friend’s careers that are now all skippers
they managed to get their first jobs with airlines flying small twins and sheds (short's SD330 / 360) etc...

Now look at say flybe / British Euro / Jersey European... you could at one time start flying for them in a Navajo or P68 flying the night mail then get on the Shed run and go on to 146s in a seamless progression from being a relatively low hour pilot, and this was not uncommon, even BA had the Shed!

Now look, the smallest type you can start on is more often than not a Dash8! And the insurance man / airlines want to see @1000
Hours TT before you get a look in!

There are some small operators like Air Wales and BAC with such small airliners but your chances are slim. So you see unless
Mr Noble's Farnborough. air-taxi 'kicks-off' we will have to see a change in attitude by the airlines et al. or growth in the 'small aircraft sector' or we will be just banging are heads against a brick wall!
:mad:

[foghorn]

RVR - from where do you get that figure? There are fourteen thousand professional licence holders, that doesn't mean to say that they have all got IRs.

cheers!
foggy.

[STANDTO]

What happened to Nobletaxi? Seems to have gone very quiet. Perhaps he was waiting for the Eclipse 500?

Regional has got to have bags of expansion. The roads are becoming more and more impractical for serious travel. If someone sat down and worked it all out I am sure a pretty effective network could be worked out. A kind of British rail of the 50's in the air.

Seriously though, the only place that more pax are going to go is either on to more bigger airplanes (A3xx) or lots more little ones (eclipse et al) Someones has to fly them.

Now, I don't dispute the level of experience needed for command, but, maybe, as with so many other occupations, those with the requisite aptitude could be earmarked much earlier. RAF pilots have already been selected for leadership potential at OASC. Maybe, if the problem is as big as some might believe, the time has come to identify a/c commanders much earlier in the system?


Any thoughts?

[martinbakerfanclub]

Phew....thank god for that!

I pay £360 an hour for an immaculate Chieftain....thought i was getting my leg truly lifted there for a moment!

[B767300ER]

Good Lord! Thats expensive for a twin-recip! We have it good here, for sure.

[BEagle]

Yes - that's because our 100LL is taxed outrageously! And if you knew how much we have to pay to land at some scruffy ex-WW2 bit of taxiway masquerading as a UK aerodrome......

Some things about the US are pretty unimpressive - cars and presidents spring to mind - but you have a MUCH healthier GA world than we do!

[Tosh McCaber]

Interesting post, David.

But, at some stage further down the line, due to retirals, the airlines are still going to have to crew their aircraft, and there will be an ever-diminishing pool of 1000+hrs (or even 500+hrs) pilots to fly them. At that point, they'll have no option other than to hire low hour guys.

The question is- how far away is it until this situation arises?

[scroggs]

We now have three threads on basically the same topic - and people are now cutting and pasting between them, which is hardly economic use of our available bandwidth. Therefore I have merged the three threads and deleted the duplication.

Perhaps I'm shovelling sh*t uphill, but could you please check to see if an open thread could support your point before you post a new one? And, while I'm at it (in the hope that someone will take some notice :rolleyes: ) would you all read the 'sticky' topic on What Is The Wannabes Forum For? (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52501) before you post any new threads?

Thank you

[Dan Winterland]

A good indicator that things are picking up is that Virgin Atlantic is recruiting again. Interviews have already been held and the first courses are scheduled for next month. Although news not of much interest to the low hours guys, this will such up pilots from lower down the food chain and make low hours jobs available.

And if George the cowboy does get his way and invades I-raq, things will slow down. The scardey Americans won't fly and fuel will go up. But don't forget that the real agenda for the war is for George W to award all his Texan oil mates the contracts for Iraqi oil once the free world has won. This will lower the oil price significantly, more people will fly and things will improve rapidly - providing Moslems don't start blowing up airliners in revenge!

[David Balchin]

Tosh McCaber;
Yes it's true by all accounts that airlines cut corners off their min
requirments when they need to. but only Messers Bush and Blair can tell you when thats gonna happen, if it dose 'Kick off' in the middle east I suspect you can add up to @18 months on to what ever situation exists at the time.

STANDTO;
I've just checked out the Farnboro. 'Air-Taxi' webby, and they are aiming for FAR certification @2006 but don't hold your breath even then, as most sales are expected to be N reg. (if any) and I don't think it'll have much impact over here till 2010 and I don't know about you but I'll be practically a hag by then!:confused:

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Things are picking up. I have seen people I know get jobs on a piston twin, a turboprop and an Airbus in the last month.

Good news all round.

However, there is a heck of pool of people out there looking for work who have a variety of backgrounds. Its harder to get a job now than it was pre Sept11th that is for sure.

2 years yet before hiring returns to pre Sept11th rates in my very humble opinion.

Good luck,

WWW

[Propellerhead]

I know a couple of ex-Oxford 200hr guys who have got jobs with BACE since September 11th. Guess they did pretty well by the sound of it.

I don't see any reaon why a Dash 8 is not a 'sensible type' for an ex-Oxford cadet. Many sponsored guys go onto 737 / 757 / Airbus which is another step up still. I think a turboprop (J41 / ATP etc) is well within reach of good calibre cadets.

[jasonjdr]

Wanted to bring this to the top again. As an important question was asked by Golf Foxtrot, which has yet to be answered by anyone ? ;

"What about the claim Oxford have made:

"At last there are signs of improvement on the job front! Presently, we have at least one airline asking for low hours pilots. In fact, we have placed nearly 30 pilots over the past two to three months with at least six different airlines."

This fairly explicit statement was taken from the, "Calling Oxford Graduates" link on their home page. If it's untrue it's a fairly blatant false advertising.

Can anyone shed any light on it, are the 30 pilots in question ex-sponsored cadets or self-improvers. "

Now we know there are people from OATS reading this board. Come on guys, any comments??

[jasonjdr]

?

[Dufus]

I've recently left Oxford so things may have changed but not much I shouldnt imagine.....

My understanding of the process (Its happening with a pal of mine) is that if your grades are excellent (All 1st time passes and high 80s low 90s) and your flying is GOOD AND you fit the profile of the particular airline/s that are looking through OATS for crew then you MAY get put forward.

This applies to Mod and Int studes, it doesnt matter which route you've taken you just have to fulfill the criteria.

There are no garuantees by OATS, you still have to have the entire interview process (plenty of scope to not make it there then)

As for the figures quoted on their web site I cant confirm them but what I can say is that there is definite proaction by them to get people placed.

As someone said before why doesnt someone call Mike Taylor and ask?

D;)