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?

Cadet programmes have been on for yonks and as far as I'm aware there is no correlation between them and aircraft crashing ... we don't want FAA 1500hr madness in Europe either so things are fine as they are.

Just to add, the FPP could not have exactly been cheap for BA. They paid the cadets in the region of £45,000+ flying pay, in addition to repaying them £84,000 training costs in the form of £12,000 a year. I'm not sure exactly on the numbers and how it all compares to a DE FO's salary, but unless they start DE guys on something like £65,000/annum it is hard to see how they have really made many savings? Probably some, but surely not enough to make any sort of a dent in the books.

I think people are getting wrapped up in the premise of cadet only recruitment. BA have always recruited from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. I'm sure that will continue. This is not the first time Whitetail cadets have been taken on. I have several friends who joined BA from Oxford this way in the mid 2000s.

Regarding the '1500hr madness' imposed by the FAA; I'm not sure it's actually all that bad a thing. I flew for a couple of the US regionals for five years. The 1500hr rule was introduced just after I moved over there. In the space of just half a decade the average starting salary of a brand new FO at a regional has TRIPLED from $20,000 per year to $60,000 year. Additionally 'signing' bonuses of up to $25k are being offered as an incentive to join various carriers. In turn money on offer at the 'majors' has also increased exponentially. US pilots are now some of the best paid in the world.

Now I realise our significantly smaller demand for GA flying in Europe means that such a rule would never work here; but don't mistake the impact of the eagerness to get straight into the right hand seat of a jet at any cost as being anything other than detrimental to your future terms and conditions.

Everyone has to start somewhere, we're very lucky to have a great mixture of experience at BA. The opportunity to join will come up again. It's awful the way it has turned out for many this time, and for that you have my sympathy. Unfortunately with BA this isn't the first time and it won't be the last.

I agree that cadets have every right to a chance as DEP. And for sure if was in the position to take that route I would.

I'm just surprised how much the holdpool candidates have been kept in the dark and prehaps lead on abit over the past year and a half.

Very disappointing for us I guess.

Amazing how many people on here think they're owed a job, even more amazing to see how many are willing to undermine every single one of their future colleagues and lower T&Cs just to 'fly for BA'.

But then again, the most important thing is the selfie hanging out of the flight deck window wearing your hat, trying to prove to all of your fake Facebook friends that your life isn't so miserable.

Sorry, nothing really to do with the post, but just had a chuckle to myself on reading the pros and cons of experience versus cadets.

I moved seats 18 months ago in Airways and its always an interesting day out with with some of our FPP Legends... ;)

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....

Wow

Abit much. I'll take fake Facebook friends over trolling and being rude on a anonymous forum.

Wow, A bit much.
Says everything really. There was nothing rude about this post unless you do hang out of the flight deck window and post a pic on FB. If you do then you are seriously sad. The point of the post was serious. BA was the pinnacle of commercial flying in the UK. They had a mix of cadet and direct experienced intake. There is a place for cadets and that is healthy. But 100% ? It is clearly done because an a**e wipe accountant has won over on the financial argument.
Personally I will have to accept that a ten year desire to fly my flag is over having finally got into the swim pool. I will just have to make do with my LCC LHS. Reading some of the comments on here I am today not so unhappy about this.

Joining seniority 4000+. 2033 and you're now still 3000+. Bidline goes early next year.

It has its attractions but it's not the only show in town. If it doesn't happen for you, enjoy what you have.

It was a joke

Relax

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

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

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.

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).

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

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!!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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!

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! ;)

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. :ok:

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

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.

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.

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.

Are you serious. As an early thirties potential joiner with 8000 hours and ten years experience and now a LHS at a Loco can you believe I would be less than enamoured to find myself behind a zero hours cadet for a future command should I eventually be deemed worthy. For me, the system works against experienced pilots but then again I suppose it is meant to.

Ho Ho Ho.... and Father Christmas really exists.

Why do you think you are so special? Just because you've got a command you think you are "worth" more than a cadet? You will be doing the same job as that cadet, nothing more, nothing less. BA is a seniority driven airline, don't like it--> don't apply.

Do not recall saying I was special, just a lot more experienced. Why not put cadets in both seats then. Your comment is unnecessarily aggressive. Yes BA is seniority driven but I did apply. There are many other attractions to BA over where I am. But I have decided to stay and I just said why so I do not need your nasty views when you have no idea what drives me. And I think the salary difference between a captain and a cadet sort of implies others think so to.

So experience has no value? Nice to know.

Don't worry mate, his aggressiveness comes from someone who was probably a FPP cadet and actually thinks he's special.

As a capt - I know I'd rather have someone with 8000 hours next to me compared to a 200 hour cadet. Simple put, yes an 8000 hour pilot is worth much more than a 200 hour cadet. The latter often increase my workload rather than alleviate it.

Maybe. I expect it is his worthless experience that got him a P2 seat on 787.

Hopefully the reality of how the seniority system works at BA cannot be a surprise to any one sitting in the hold pool who performed due diligence.

I know it's been said before but here it is again: like it or not pretty much everything in BA is governed by date of joining....you must assume the pilot who joined a day/week/month ahead of you will get first shot at a command course unless there's a very rare combination of circumstance. In the 90s and later the likes of the Prestwick Cadets got commands ahead of DEPs who had joined from the forces/other airlines, and unless the rules change you can expect the FPPs and the possible "white tales" to get a shot at command ahead of any high hours LHSeaters joining from FR, Emirates or wherever.

Not sure anyone sounded surprised. Disappointed perhaps.

Someone definitely sounded a bit arrogant. While everyone starts at the bottom in BA, to suggest a person with 8000 hours at the bottom is bringing the same to the table as a 200 hour cadet is simply wrong.

True wiggy and yes I was well aware when I applied. But when I applied I was RHS at a LoCo. There were a number who joined BA in the previous intake and achieved LHS there within two years as long as they had the relevant experience. This made it attractive to apply. In the intervening period I have moved to LHS and the significant increase in salary is very important when you have young children. The seniority list at BA has become static and the road to command now looks a lot longer so to experienced applicants the proposition appears less attractive. Do not get me wrong. I would have loved to have flown for BA but the length of time to command means for someone like me in my circumstances, it is no longer the right choice.

The debate as to wether time in company is the most applicable of possible criteria to award promotion has been done several times before on here. But it is BA's way and we do all know that.