Wizzair

[JOE MAXY]

Has any Capt that was successful in September’s recruitment been offered a base yet?

[Giuff]

Recrutiment will slow a bit now, then restart soon at full scale also for NTR colleagues.
Company running at full training capacity at the moment. Every single hr resource is deployed.
Best of luck to all.

[Banana Joe]

Any timeline as to when the recruitment will restart? Beginning of 2022?

[Giuff]

I would say much before then.
The plan is for 172 airframes in the air by the end of 2022.

[JOE MAXY]

1. Any bond for rated guys?

2. And when you get allocated to a base I presume you are not base frozen ?( unless you requested that base in the 1st place)

[Giuff]

1. No
2. Normally 1 year but anybody can apply for base transfer from line release

Expect great expansion therefore some time at initial base

[Toastal]

Any idea when this mob are going to touch base with the real world and stop trying to recruit NASA Astronauts? It’s amazing how a once bottom feeder loco has risen to the top of the cess pit. They’re delusional with their selection procedure and now have to recruit those they rudely refused via a U.K. Agency (IAGO) just so that they can get bums on seats. The tide will turn next year for flight crew. Wizz UK need to grow a pair and recruit their own staff to crew their aircraft!

[Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP]

The chickens will be coming home to roost in aviation this winter. So many people have retired early or fallen out of love with flying because of their treatment by their employers. Very few youngsters in training. My guess is the pilot headcount in the UK is down by 10-15%. Every part of the economy is suffering a skills shortage and aviation will soon be a part of that. The smart airlines will offer decent money and early start dates for 2022 if they don't want to see their shiny frames parked up. I reckon the likes of Titan will be ready to clean up next year.

[Ronipilot]

Selection process for captains

For those who asked about specifics of the assessment, I was recently in one of the DEC events; expect a 33% pass rate.
day 1 company presentation, 60 minutes technical test (multiple choice about a320 systems and EASA regulations) , role-play, and personal interview (only technical questions, systems, weather, scenarios)
day 2 simulator and psychometrics
simulator was intense they have many different scenarios they basically want to see CRM , crew work, following procedures and some hand-flying.

salary back to normal (45k base/year, 0.062/km, 30/landing)
good luck to all.

[Giuff]

Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP

I don't know about UK, for what i see in Europe and ME, there are still thousands of pilots unemployed.
FZ opened positions for 3 days and received tons of applications.
TCs will remain the same for longer in my opinion.
None of my friends in their 50's are retiring.

[Airone2977]

In Europe situation is bad, but definitely better than last year. However, a lot of seasonnal contract are coming to an end nowadays, adding experience crews back to the job market.

[JOE MAXY]

Ronipilot

Did you get a start date or notification of available bases yet?

[0VJs]

Not yet. For all those who passed the assessment as NTR crew, how much time passed between the confirmation of successful assessment and the job offer?

[Direct DIKRO]

Has anyone been allocated a UK base recently?

[TBSC]

Ho hum.
Wizz Air executive sacked after his secret share-dealing is revealed | Business | The Times

[Pearlharbour]

This people are flying 11% more than prepandemic last week with less pilots.

The maths tells me that something is running to the limit. Maybe squeezing their pilots to the limit? And we are in winter.

and they continue playing with assestments, looking for the excellence of their candidates, for me is quite quite clear what is gonna happen from March and ahead. They are not prepared, they have their crews exhausted in low session already, and they are already late training crews for next year. Slow recruitment, slow training... perfect combination to make a disaster soon.

Just look what happened to Southwest of American Airlines today. And we are speaking about good companies that treat and pay pilots with respect.

the pool of unemployed experienced pilots is drying little by little and you cannot run a company just contracting 80% of cadets.

Who knows maybe this strategy it works. But for a company with such wishes of expansion they should be preparing people like crazy and they are just playing with people and nice proffesional pilots. “Today I want you, tomorrow maybe not and the day after I don’t know”.

continue like this Wizzair. Making your reputation a mess in between the pilots community. You are doing everyday better!

[TorqueStripe]

I am assuming that number is the week over week comparison from the Eurocontrol feed. Keep in mind last year daylight savings time ended a week earlier than this year, so that number is comparing winter schedule last year to summer schedule this year.
The only pilots probably flying anywhere near their limits until December will be trainers.

[Pearlharbour]

No, I just double checked.
You can visit the official website and it states clearly the following figures.

29/10/21 ........ 654 flights
vs
29/10/19 ........ 564 flights

11.3% above 2019 levels same week on 2021. With much more less man power. God bless you next pick session...!
I leave you down here the link in case you want to analyze by yourself.

https://www.eurocontrol.int/Economic...ation-AOs.html

Let's say the truth to the people please.

[TBSC]

The occasional positive numbers in those comparison sheets are caused by the very low base (2020). They have 20% more aircraft now to fly (145 today) yet only 70-80 are flying (67 as of this very moment per FR24). They will sweat blood to fly the whole fleet (or even 70-80% of it) come holiday season.

[Giuff]

Pearlharbour

mentioning a disaster in my opinion is not really professional and what we need after the last 2 years in aviation.
Anyways, recruiting department is doing all it takes to get as many as possible onboard; the problem is that there are not enough trainers, even with external aid things run unfortunately slower.
No excellence is looked after during screenings imho, simply reliable and professional people with the right attitude. I am ex ME and i saw former colleagues coming here with the wrong attitude, they all failed. Hopefully they will fly again in the desert soon and i wish them best of luck.
Also, if you are a Captain with XXXXX hours and you cannot decode a taf or don't know a bunch of Lido symbols, well, then you have a problem, not only with Wizz Air.
If you have a level 6 on your license but during the interview you speak clearly like a level 4, again, you have a problem.
There is a false myth going on here; Wizz recruitment is not for astronauts, it is simply for well prepared pilots. If anybody come to Budapest thinking its a walk in the park simply because they arrive from a super legacy, here you have a surprise, and i saw it myself during my screening back in summer.
Things will improve, they have to, next year will be a test for all airlines. I am sure Wizz Air will continue to suck as many pilots as possible in the next months, both rated and NTR.
About reputation, we may have a crap reputation, but still i see candidates from Airlines with a "better reputation" at the screening sessions in Budapest, sweating for an interview.
Lesson one, never spit in the air, because it will come back to you.
Wizz is the only carrier actively looking for pilots, both experienced and cadet level. The others are still in survival mode. Take it as it is, a job opportunity in a dark moment. No ego allowed.
Training is well structured and aircrafts have a clean techlog most of the times.

Best of luck to all those who will give it a try.