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

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!

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.

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 .