Virgin Australia Cadetship 2012 & 2013
 

Great news to see more progress and Virgin Australia looking out for the next generation of aviators/aviatrix in our country.

Excellent news for 2012 and best wishes to those who receive this fantastic opportunity.

:)

Hoss, Where exactly do I find this wonderful opportunity?

Where did you find out about this?

And the million dollar question - how much cash does this wonderful opportunity cost from the cadet's pocket? Or his parents pocket more like it?

Announced a couple of days ago, EOI from training providers to operate the Virgin Australia Group of Airlines Flight Crew Cadetship in partnership with Skywest Airlines.

First course expected 2012.

Watch this space.

If it is in partnership with Skywest will the cadets then be able to gain access to the main Virgin Group?

And may this wonderful opportunity earmark what will be the downward pressure on terms and conditions.

Cadetships are wonderful programmes that help alleviate the pressure on improving terms through attrition. Jetstar,Qantaslink,Cobham and Rex all know what advantages these programs bring to their organisations.

If this allows people to buy their way in to a job, then whole safety culture of the industry will unravel :*

Yep the airlines spin money all the way through. They make money on the training they then get cheap captive labour who's careers they then have complete control over.

I feel for guys just starting out in GA as these cadet courses are starting to block the career progression of GA pilot's. The more cadet's there are in regionals the less jobs available to guys from GA.

Do we have links to these announcements or the cadetship itself?

Me thinks a lot of guys who have applications in at Virgin won't be very happy to hear this news (if it's for real).

Although, it sounds like it may only be a crew covering exercise for Skywest's east coast ATR operation?

Great...........more useless cadets!!:ugh::ugh:

Most of the ones at JQ are f'n useless and should be banging around in a C150 somewhere.

2 years my application has been in at Virgin... thousands of hours turbine..... never got a call. Let's just hire cadets instead. :ugh:

(I know it is for the ATR only but still)

Not just for the ATR operation.

Cadets thru this program will be for the ATR, and the back seat of the 777. Maybe even straight into a window seat on the jungle jet. That's the rumor from on top the operations management mountain.

Can imagine how welcomed their going to be by the ATR crews when they realize the halfwit in the seat next to them can move up to Virgin Australia and they can't.

JB, some parts of the Qantas culture/business model need to stay at Qantas.

The Monster :E

This can't be right. From reading these pages Virgin has been specifically designed to make pilots happy. It's the model to which all currently profitable airlines must aspire. There must be some mistake :ok:

Really?... I've flown with plenty of useless former GA and Military pilots!

Maybe you are not what they are looking for?

When did Virgin return a bigger profit than QF?, (mind you the current QF management is flawed) $550m for a year isn't bad, even with the use of cadets.

There have been cadetships since.. who know's when, and plenty of pilot's still got jobs in Airlines... I feel sorry for people becoming pilots too.... why would you want to invest your life in this crap:).... evidently driving a garbage truck pays more! ($300 per night)

Standard,

Your comments sound like a typical manager who only looks at the dollar sign. How you can say a cadet would be a better pilot than someone with experience is beyond me. There may be those strugglers out there that can't fly and maybe some naturally talented pilots who don't need experience, but the majority of cadets are sh#t. Just ask any real Captain. There are so many things you can't teach with flying, and it's only the times when you push the limits is when you learn different aerodynamic situations. You can't really push the limits with krusty old captain like you in the left hand seat of a jet, and the auto-pilot will fail on you one day.

Flooding the market with cadets to cope with a pilot shortage is not the answer. Treating poeple right to attract the right people is the answer and keep your experienced pilots is the only answer....

Virgin will still have a need for large number of pilots from GA, MIL and Regional. Company is saying only a small number of cadets will be employed each year. They will not put cadets into the RH of any jets until they reach an appropriate experience level.

Regarding the Skywest Captains seeing the cadet FO move over to Virgin, well if they had of been smart and allowed the Virgin Australia pilots who wanted to go over to the ATR via the EOI, then a door would have opened. Now the door is closed and there will be no short cut for them.

come fly

That's NOT what standard said, he said,

And he is right, there are plenty of them out there and I have seen my fair share, so much so, I would much rather a welltrained cadet in the right seat of my aircraft, than a GA pilot that slipped through the cracks. However, I have seen my fair share of the reverse situation. In the end if you are right for the job then it does not matter if you were a cadet or you came from GA.

I have examples of such if you care to know, but I won't put them here incase they are identified or i get identified. It would defeat the purpose of an alias.

GAFA, I am a Skywest pilot and we have had no say in the Virgin ATR project, it was just foistered upon us from above.
Due to the way our industrial agreement is written our senior mangement had no choice but to put the ATR pilots on the seniority list, all ATR positions were advertised internally however few guys took up the offer as most of us want to be domiciled in Perth (thats why we joined Skywest) and all new pilots have gone to the bottom of the seniority list based on date of employment.
We as a pilot body had no say in the "EOI" that you mention, in fact its the first that I have heard of it. I doubt the majority of SWA guys currently in the company would have had any problem with it as it does not affect them in any way, those who want to work for Virgin have left and gone already, the rest of us are happy were we are (well as happy as a pilot can be!)
As to how the cadetship would work I dont know as none of the line pilots have been involved or had any input.

The only reason you would prefer a cadet in your right hand seat is because you know he wouldn't ask question about your decisions, because the inexperienced cadet wouldn't know any better, because he hasn't learnt anything for himself. You can't under estimate the value of gaining experience in GA. Gaining the knowledge to think outside the box when it's needed....

Skywest Seniority. Ha Ha!! I was one of the pilots drop kicked out of Skywest years ago by a popular vote of those currently at the top of that list. Never met a more 'self serving' group of individuals in my life. The Ansett brown noses still rule at this illustrious organisation!

XRF100,

Feedback we've had is those employed directly onto the ATR from outside Skywest didn't want the Virgin Australia pilots. Even though Skywest were advertising for positions (C & T, Capts etc) every few weeks. The current Skywest agreement does allow for DEC and this has happened on the ATR on the East Coast.

Virgin Australia sent an EOI at the same time Skywest was advertising, asking for interest from pilots for C & T and Training positions. The plan was for these pilots to be employed under Skywest EBA for 2 years and take LWOP from Virgin Australia. Virgin received around 30 EOI from both Capts and FO's with many of these pilots holding previous Check and Training experience. In the end none were offered positions.

Many of those pilots employed onto the ATR had missed out on Virgin previously and may see this has a back door into Virgin. Skywest not taking any pilots from Virgin has not gone down to well with some of the pilot group.

Plus when a Virgin Australia 737 is following ATR and told by they are number 2 to the ATR and the 737 pilot asks "is that one of ours" and before the controller can reply the ATR pilot replies "no it's one of ours" it really does create an "US" and "THEM" culture.

Come fly, as was already pointed out you didn't read my comment, perhaps literacy is not something taught in GA?

So who is that your are attacking now?, the strugglers or the cadets?

I take it that as a REAL Captain you have flown with varying generations of Cadets, as both a first officer and a captain? I truly doubt it so i suggest you stick to what you know rather than making uneducated, bullsh&t statements.

So the cadet bashers crawl out from under their rocks. Again. Most of the time I try to keep my PPRuNe comments as professional as possible, but in this instance: Many of you make it quite clear that you are ignorant, misinformed (insert derogatory remark here).

As has already been said (or implied), there are no more good or bad cadets than there are good or bad GA pilots, or good & bad military pilots. For all the screening & various filters employed in the selection process, it has to be acknowledged that the occasional misfit will always slip through. I know, because in a former life I used to train QF cadets myself.

Nevertheless many of them impressed the hell out of me. For the most part they were mature, hard-working individuals with a great attitude, & very conscious of the "opportunity" they had been given. Whilst lacking in total flying experience, they still demonstrated all the necessary problem-solving & decision-making skills that left me in no doubt that many of them would go on to make excellent crew members & future pilots in command.

Whilst the specifics of the cadetship are still to be finalised, I would guess that Virgin's attitude towards the programme will be very much in line with the recent recommendations from the senate inquiry into pilot training & aviation safety. I don't think you will be seeing any graduates going straight into the front seat of a jet, E-Jet or otherwise. More than likely (as already mentioned elsewhere on this thread), they will be placed into the right-hand seat of an ATR - or the jump seat of a 777.

Rest assured, however, that whilst Virgin WILL continue to recruit from GA, regionals & the military, future pilot requirements dictate that a cadet programme will be part of the mix. Deal with it.

The Bunglerat,
Nice to see some balance here. The truly scary cadetships are the ones where willingness to pay is more important than ability, minimum training is the benchmark, and they go on to fly airbuses on autopilot straight off course. I would rather a good cadet than the bottom applicant from GA next to me. However I would expect a reasonable body of experience in hand flying somewhere before they get to the auto pilot heavy world of jet RPT.

Several years ago, a younger me, mouthed off about Qantas cadets to an ex mil friend in Q. He set me straight on the quality of the majority of cadets he had flown with, having high praise for one in particular. On the other hand AF447 shows what happens to pilots who have minimal hand flying before they transition to the airbus.

Flyingfox,

My understanding is that the event that you refered to occurred back in 1994, I have just had a look at the current seniority list and of the 120+ pilots on the books at the moment there are only six, I repeat, six current pilots who were employed prior to late 1995. I in no way condone their actions and indeed I feel your pain however I feel that it is unjust to taint the whole Skywest pilot group with the actions of a few.Those few involved no longer hold any positions of responsibility within the company.

GAFA,
Im sorry to hear that you guys feel that way. To the best of my knowledge the current T&Cs on the ATR are either Perth based Skywest guys seconded to the ATR operation to help with transition of Skywest SOPs etc.. or experienced ATR guys and all the required postions were filled ie no requirement for Virgin guys, no malice intended.
As for the "no its one of ours" comment that is a shame and I hope it does not reflect the attitude of the skywest group over there as we all have enough problems with the "divide and conquer" tactics of aviation management in general without contributing to it from within.

cheers

XR,

If all the C & T positions were filled from pilots from the west and experienced ATR pilots, then why did Skywest advertise 4 weeks ago in the Australian for these positions. Those who applied for the EOI include Ejet captains with at least one being a training Capt on it. The Ejet and the ATR 72-600 have a very similar cockpit and although Skywest may have got experienced ATR pilots I bet none of them have operated a fully integrated/advanced flight deck like the -600 and Ejet.

What about the talk CASA could make the -600 a different endorsement to the -500? If that happens then having experienced ATR pilots doesn't mean much.

Also when we hear Skywest ATR pilots saying "if they (Virgin) come over here for a command, then we want a command at Virgin" doesn't help.

Can anyone explain to me why an E-Jet captain would want to go over to a turbo-prop!? :confused:

Thank you for backing up my comments about cadet vs GA guys,

Standard, The Bunglerat and BombsGone.

It is very true.

Just wondering Come Fly, at 26yo are you are REAL Captain?

Krusty,

Lifestyle, some of those who applied have been commuting for 2-3 years. The dollars that Skywest are paying for training captains is equal to what these captains earn when commuting costs are considered. If they were given check positions they would be ahead.

The ignorance from some of the posters on this forum never ceases to amaze me.

In my company there is a vast mix of former GA, military and cadet pilots... with a few exceptions noted, you ask any captain and they will tell you that the cadets are, on average, at the VERY least equal in ability to most from GA. I've been told by some check captains that the sim and check results speak for themselves.

Reality is that you're either naturally good at this and/or you're trainable, or you're not, regardless of what stream you come in via. We shouldn't be pigeon holing individuals ability based on what background they have. As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I have it on very, very good authority that most of the QF cadets are excellent operators.

I do however take issue with cadet programs that are used to put downward pressure on employment conditions... ie employing under different contracts. Now THAT is a problem.

That's been my experience re: cadets OFS. The pro's and Cons are almost limitless, but I for one have had very few negative results, up and above what I find in most newcomers, as we all once were.

But the money making exploitive schemes? Blood boiling stuff.

Thanks for the clarification GAFA. I guess these guys will have to continue commuting for the forseable future. Hopefully the base of their choice will eventually come up!

A little bit of gold from a JQ cadet...............


In my experience, experience is counts for nothing!!

Gaffa,

I do not understand, if these E jet pilots want to work for Sky west what is preventing them?

we will just wait for a sky full of captains who were cadets and watch the accidents rise....maybe QF will lose that illusive hull....

I doubt it, by the time a Q Cadet finds himself in the left seat of a Jet he would have been in the air around 10-15 years, just ask Keg.
The issue would be if they are short cut into the left seat with just the minimums, but the same would apply with any pilot. If you see a 1501hr Capt. then you should be worried.

From memory, at least every cadet I trained had a grasp of correct spelling, grammar & general use of the English language, so on that point alone they're already more qualified than you, Come Fly. :ugh:

GAFA
Dont know, decisions made by those above my pay grade - maybe they needed ATR guys to fill seats with minimal training ASAP

You maybe right I guess they will worry about that once AOC has been obtained and the 600s are in country - first things first.

As Above.

Next time you see a Skywest pilot, invite them out for a beer, have a chat there is always two sides to every story, it maybe have been a throw away line taken out of context, a misquote that you have heard third hand or simply just a misunderstanding. As I said yesterday "we all have enough problems with the "divide and conquer" tactics of aviation management in general without contributing to it from within."

Hope you have had a good day.
Cheers

Come fly

The fact is that the skies of Europe are full of Captains who came from Cadets.

You my friend are wrong in so many ways.