BA Direct Entry Pilot.

[FlipFlapFlop]

Spot on. The biggest issue is the seniority list for experienced direct entry.

[Jumbo2]

I'm sorry but you lost me here; Why would the current seniority system be unfair for DEP?

[thetimesreader84]

There is a place for cadets and that is healthy. But 100% ?

100% cadets, of which we are led to believe a sizeable %age are not on a tagged scheme as such, hired before a pool of experienced, proven, already recruited professional pilots.

[akindofmagic]

I'm sorry but I lost you here; Why would the current seniority system be unfair for DEP?

I don't thing there's anything 'unfair' to DEPs. It's more that if you join as a 30+ DEP, you'll never have enough seniority to be able to do anything 'useful'. Looking in from outside, it looks more and more like joining much older than mid-twenties may well not pay off (depending on what you want from your career of course).

[Threethirty]

Not the case at all, you can get a 320 command in next to no time now.

[EMB-145LR]

BA is not offering your jobs to cadets! Any whitetails that are selected won't be joining the company until 2019 at the earliest. They won't have even begun their basic practical flight training when they are selected, only their ATPL exams will be complete.

Cadet recruitment just requires a much longer lead in time than DEP recruitment. The average cadet takes nearly two years to hit the line. A DEP can join in a matter of months.

The whitetails are replacing any future FPP courses. There is no change to BAs recruitment strategy of hiring DEPs, Managed Path and cadet pilots. All that is changing is the source of those cadets.

Hiring in 2018 will be exclusively from the FPPs pool. Those pilots were selected by BA two and a half years ago, and the majority finished their training a while back and have been waiting for a good, long while. In fact the company is currently addressing how they can revalidate their instrument ratings in preparation for starting a type rating course.

Come 2019 new joiners will no doubt come from both the DEP holdpool and the whitetail cadets that are currently being selected.

This does not signal the end of DEPs at BA. The company is just reverting to how it hired cadets in the last decade after full sponsorship stopped and before the FPP began.

Undoubtedly, BA will change the plan six times in the next 12 months anyway! So don't be surprised if you get a call asking if you can be on a type rating course in a weeks time!!

[RexBanner]

Originally Posted by Officer Kite

I'm interested if any of you back in the day were handed a place on a cadet course leading to employment with BA, would you have rejected on moral principle and out of respect to those who were applying via direct entry? I think not ... I look through historical posts through some people in this thread and find a couple from earlier days regarding flight training, the likes of CTC/OAA et al being discussed etc etc ... yet now integrated schools producing cadets are the dark enemy?

If you are in any way referring to me I'd suggest you look where I went after Oxford. I took a job with Flybe where I paid nothing for a type rating, joined the company on the proper First Officer pay scale, expenses paid during training and didn't undermine anyone to get my first job. I made a conscious decision before I even started training that I would never go to Ryanair out of pure principle. I also turned down the chance to apply for the APPFO Plus scheme at easyJet. Granted I got a bit lucky in that I got the only job I could have got in the circumstances but my conscience is clear thanks.

[BASHLH]

Originally Posted by Threethirty

Not the case at all, you can get a 320 command in next to no time now.

Not true... so far Zero 320 commands in 2017 apart from a couple of waifs. There may be a few towards the end of the year as now more are moving than expected to LH due to part time being sorted, but I'm sure it'll be bk up to 2200-2500 seniority as usual. 2016 was a freq year!

All as I keep saying things keep changing daily in BA, having done a bit of research I agree that the majority of the white tales will be 2019 onwards... DEP's will always fill the gap.

[RexBanner]

Are we really saying (at the moment) only 65 pilots to join the company in 2018 though? We've got increased commands on Long Haul because of part time, part time in the right hand seat and new aircraft coming. Not to mention the retirements. 65 pilots, really? We're not that overcrewed!

[VJW]

Rex just a quick one on your conscious decision never to join Ryanair etc.

I'm not sure that doing an £80k+ integrated course at Oxford compared to my modular course that cost me £30k and subsequent RYR type rating at £25k, makes you any better than those who just picked a different route. Having done the Oxford route and paid twice the price as some of us doing a modular course, you opened up doors to yourself that modular guys didn't have - especially at that time. Be careful sounding too proud when all you did was avoid paying £15k to flybe for a type rating that would have pushed your total training costs close to £100k.

Before training I made the conscious decision never to go to Oxford for the same reasons you didn't want to go to RYR.

[RexBanner]

Small point but it wasn't £80k in 2008. It was just over £65k, adjusted for inflation though probably similar (but you'd have to adjust your figures too). I'm not saying it makes me any better or worse but someone was clearly implying hypocrisy and generalizing Oxford students (whether it was directed at me or not) and I was just defending myself and others who went to Oxford and didn't pay for ratings at the end of it. That's all.

[VJW]

I hear you - but again the point they might have been making was you paid double for a the same blue cased licence as those that went modular and didn't have the same opportunities.

Did you ever see, or has there ever been a modular cadet that went straight to BA or Easy for that matter?

The figures I quoted for myself it what I paid in 2008 so to compare:

I paid £55k for a licence and type rating.
You paid 'just over' £65k for a licence and type rating..

What's a tiny bit frustrating for me now, is to pass the BA selection, and 9 years after completing my licences, there is still Integrated newbies who haven't even passed their training yet, that will join BA, be higher on the seniority list and sitting in both the RHS and eventually LHS in the company before people like myself will.

[RexBanner]

Originally Posted by EMB-145LR

BA is not offering your jobs to cadets! Any whitetails that are selected won't be joining the company until 2019 at the earliest. They won't have even begun their basic practical flight training when they are selected, only their ATPL exams will be complete.

EMB-145LR It is my firm belief that they are identifying these whitetail cadets who are at the end of their ground school right NOW. Otherwise it's a remarkable case of timing and coincidence that - right at the same time that they sent out the email to the holdpoolers with the bad news - they were surveying their pilots to confirm whether or not they would meet the newly formed entry requirements for consideration for the white tail scheme. I smell a rat.

The second thing is, as I said earlier in the thread, I cannot see how they are going to cover the requirement for pilots in 2018 with 65 FPP cadets. There must be a lot more movement in the pipeline than that.

(VJW I hear you and I'm firmly in your corner by the way)

[Stocious]

Originally Posted by BASHLH

Ha yeh... there's even one of them on Yammer asking what pay scale he will go to next year when he gets his Command....

What's wrong with that? The early FPP's will be unfrozen this year and will have the hours required. Is it any different to 5 year commands at another company?

I feel for those in the DEP hold pool, but cadet-bashing helps nobody, and must be particularly galling to those that gave up other careers for the FPP and are now sat in jobless limbo as well, wondering if BA will ever give them a start date!

[VJW]

I for one dont feel sorry for them- oh how I wish I had that problem at the end of my training.

I KNEW BA was not going to call!

[Stocious]

Well, you pays your money and you takes your choice don't you? You could have waited another 5 years for the FPP to come along. I did, but that was only as there was no other option for me.

[VJW]

Yup- same can be said for the FPP guys you feel so desperately sorry for now..

[wiggy]

Are we really saying (at the moment) only 65 pilots to join the company in 2018 though?

I agree with your scepticism on that number Rex. Even if the v senior manager I mentioned earlier had been kept in the dark about a change of policy of new joiners he would have had an handle on the number of b**s needed on seats...and he was quoting the need for far more than 65.

[Northern Monkey]

Personally I can't believe the number will be anywhere near that low. If anything I would have said they would want to slightly over crew next year because the JSS implementation is BOUND to throw up issues, BA having such an amazing record at implementing new IT projects.

Not only that but the general morale level at BA is the worst I've seen it since I joined which is likely to result in further requests for early retirement / part time.

This looks like more short termism from our management team.

[thetimesreader84]

I think the inference is that recruitment next year will be FPP first, then "white tail", then any crumbs from that table will be passed to DEP, probably type rated first.