The impression I've been given is that EI can't hold onto to their pilots. Aer Lingus are short of pilots partly because they precipitiously got rid of some of the more expensive older hands and partly because being an Aer Lingus pilot means you are attractive to the likes of BA or anyone really. So people are leaving for pastures new.

This would apparently apply to a lot of the self funded pilots they took on recently.

It's been suggested that these cadetships are almost a panic measure to try and get some pilots who will stay the course and not bugger off once they have a few years in an Airbus and have become very marketable.

Possibly through some heavy ball and chain bonding. These new cadets will have a big debt to pay and the partial sponsorship will ensure they're bonded for a long time. Aer Lingus are trying not to be a preferred supplier of pilots for BA DEs.

Time will tell.

You are probably hitting the nail on the head with your logic Corsair. Of course if a Pilot job is worth having, there is no need for any bond, people will not bail out.
My informants tell me a high failure rate on courses may be something to do with it.

Indeed OCH, if a pilot job is worth having they will stay but the fact is that Ireland is too small to provide sufficent Irish pilots who can satisfy EI's particular requirements. Certainly in terms of self sponsored pilots. Irish recruits though are far more likely to stay and make a career of it even if the job isn't the best around.

Aer Lingus has a well known preference for integrated course graduates which also restricts them. On top of which their selection process with it's reliance on psychometric test even for DEs, narrows it again. That means they have to cast their net even wider. So they must hire non Irish quite simply because they exclude the majority of Irish candidates before they even get to the starting gate.

Non Irish pilots are more likely to move on to pastures new particularly for better pay, prospects and possibilities of earlier command.

So logically the most likely candidate to stay on and make a career of Aer Lingus is probably Irish. But of course by the very nature of their recruitment process they exclude much of the Irish self improvers. The very people who would want to stay and see out their career in Aer Lingus.

This recruitment drive seems to be a way solving this problem of their own making. Tie them down with bonds and maybe they'll stay a bit longer whether they be Irish or British or Polish.

It's rather ironic that there's a high failure rate on their courses given their recruitment process. So much for integrated graduates being better!

I've heard from the HR Dept. - 20 pilots per year for the next 5 years.

If Aer Lingus is so flush with cash and can afford to train their own pilots despite the fact that there are so many qualified irish pilots available, would'nt it be far more viable to recruit a proper HR department and remove the idiots that put them in this mess! :ugh:

Well out of 8000 applicants from their last recruitment drive earlier in the year they only managed to get about 20 recruits - so whatever standards they are looking for they must certainly be high! They're obviously looking for something "special" (note the quotes) and believe they can get what they want by overseeing the training straight from the get-go! However it doesnt really solve the problem of pilot shortages between now and the time the cadets will be trained!

this is true... however
 

cadets would still have to be trained ....... frind of mine just recieved his invitation fot the online assessment and IF qualified personal interview and re assessment on 29 september 2011 in dublin airport


"Candidates successful at this online assessment stage of the selection process will be invited to attend an assessment centre at a venue near Dublin Airport on dates between the 19th and 29th of September 2011. Please keep a note of this important timeframe".

aer lingus
 

I too have just recieved an email to do the online assessments. Will take about an hour and a half according to the email and 8 assessments in total...

Is there anywhere you can practise online before actually starting them?

Stu

Interesting that EI have got back to applicants prior to the 14th August deadline. Mind you, BA do the same with their DEP applicants.

So is the scheme open to people with CPL & IR, or will they make you redo all the training with them at a cost of £100k

WELL
 

lets see..... and i dont think you can really pratice theses tests prior .... i dunno ... about but for those with cpl and ir its real financial suicide if you have to re do all the training.... just my 2 cents .... it could be mpl as well ....:ok:

I got the email for online assessment too. I'm hopeful that Aer Lingus will secure any loan required, like the BA scheme TBA. You can only try...

UK education
 

Guys to those of you that have been fortunate enough to have recieved a response from Aer Lingus and have been through the UK education system, In which boxes did you enter you respective GCSE/ A level results in ?

I completed my GCSE’s and A-Levels in Northern Ireland, as you have stated the boxes containing ‘drop down menu’s’ were restricted to a handful of subjects (only 3 of which I had studied for GCSE) and the grading was different.

Because of this, I entered all my GCSE and A-level results in the 3 x 12 table just below that table, I got an email around 16:30 inviting me to take the online assessments. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard yet, with the volume of people that would have applied it may well take a few days.

Advice
 

Can anyone give me advice for the Aer Lingus Cadet online assesment?
THanks

^
Erm how about no! Wtf do you think this is; a sainsburys application? We are all essentially competing against one another for this scheme; and if anyone was to give you info on the assessments; they are a bigger fool than you.

jedjnr - The only advice I can give you is to do as badly as you can on all parts of the assessment (task permitting, don't even enter an answer). This will show them you are a maverick and that you don't play by the rules ; airlines love this ;)

wow u guys are so nice!

A bit of friendly banter :)