Currently yes, but they've been recruiting non stop for close to 3 years. Commands will slow down and then anyone at the back of that seniority list could potentially be in for a longer wait.

if you're prepared for that then by all means go for it, but don't believe the Zenon sales pitch to get bums on seats and go in with your eyes open

“currently”
This will change

Just be prepared to wait 8/9/10 years for a command only to be let go on the next downturn.

I know we are in the age of instant gratification, but a reasonable career expectation is spending half your career in the right seat, and half in the left seat. There is two seats and two pilots up front after all.....
Obviously this can get skewed a bit by growth, more captains that are trainers, and more senior people (captains) having more time off, but still. And even more so if you fly long haul with two FOs and one captain.

Essentially - if you're 8 years in at VS, then you will have the opportunity for command. Not 'you will get your command', as not everyone does. If you join now, then it will likely be double-figures time to command.

It’s very similar now to when I joined in 2003/4. There was a period of high recruitment and expansion, which I was at the front end of, and command times were being quoted as 4-5 years IIRC. But then expansion (and retirements) stalled, and it took 12 years until the command process started for me.

Not that I’m complaining mind you. VS back then was amazing fun, and I genuinely loved the job. Also, there was a lot to be said for being a senior SFO under the old bidding system!

Unfortunately that’s not the case anymore. I definitely couldn’t do 12 years under the current conditions….

The future is indeed a guess, but my statement is factual.
Anything else is speculation.
Command time may come down further since lots are still leaving and they need lots more pilots.

Wishful thinking mate

In december I flew to ATL with a very tech savy skipper that made an upgrade calculator with Microsoft Excel. He based the F/O’s at 37 yrs average and current skippers at 51 average. He also based it on zero growth(which is factual for the next 10 years) and a reasonable fixed amount of command courses each year and taking in to account fixed retirements at the age of 61. The outcome was quite shocking.

If you joined Virgin around the start of 2023 going up you’re looking at an upgrade time of at least 12/13 years. And that’s WITHOUT any downturn. But if there’s only 1 year of zero command and still no growth it would easily jump to 15/16 years. We tried loads of scenario’s but the only thing that would really move the needle is people retiring around 55 years, anything else is minimum 12/13 years,even slow growth.

I’ve been here a year and a half and I don’t really have anything negative to say about Virgin, in fact it’s been refreshing to see an airline do things differently than a major. At this airline they kind of like leave you alone and leave you be as opposed to a Major I was with before where they’re looking over your shoulder 24/7.

I would strongly recommend joining Virgin if you’re looking for a nice stable airline with great colleagues and a very good training department, however you need to be prepared for command times of 13 years or longer and no growth in the next 10 years.

cheers.

Quite a statement.

Brilliant

No, I'm a Virgin Captain, so nothing wishful involved, just an opinion.

Wrong reply
 

No mate, guess you replied to the wrong guy. And yes you're correct, nobody knows what's gonna happen, the only thing we do here is just give an opinion. Only thing I did do is observe this excel software that gave a 12/13 yr command wait for people like me who started in '23.

If it turns out to be less well then I'm lucky but I'll set my sights on a 13yr wait.

Virgin - Boeing
 

I see Virgin are recruiting for Airbus rated pilots but nothing for Boeing TR applicants?
does anyone in the know see this changing anytime soon?

Planning time to command in Virgin is all well and good, but those that do need their eyes wide open - this is a heavily loss making airline that is being supported by Delta, their minority shareholder.

Command planning is only worthwhile if you consider this arrangement is likely to carry on for the next 8/10/12 years.

£3.3bn revenue; £230m operating profit in 2024, overall profit of £20m (not much admittedly but target was >0 and was first profit-making yr since 2016). "Much of" their pandemic debt repaid. Pilots conditions not what they were pre-covid, but improving. 🤷🏼‍♂️

According to the latest published annual company accounts (Yr ending 31 DEC 23), a 1.8B net debt before the pandemic has grown to 3.5B net debt. Loss for the year was £225.5M. Which debt has since been paid off?

You know its 2025, right?

Yes - but you can only go on what has been audited and reported to the city rather than wishful thinking as an accounting mechanism.

VS don't report to the 'city'. They're a limited company. You don't run an airline for 40+ years without knowing how to be discreet with profit and loss. Business 1.01

Exactly this. People seem to get so hung up on the whole making profit etc etc.
Companies like Virgin “never make a profit”

Many many airlines through history have “never made a profit”

Yet look at the owners. ££££££££££££/$$$$$$$$$$$

reminds me of monarch

Most companies in the UK are “limited companies”, either Public (PLC - eg Tesco, Barclays) or Private (Ltd - eg Virgin, John Lewis). If the Private Ltd company is large - they now both have similar reporting obligations, also to Companies House. That’s why Virgin produce an (audited) Annual Report. It’s difficult to be discreet.

You also don’t want to make a profit as it’s taxable so you reinvest in yourself by buying the aircraft you lease instead rather than give it to Rachel…apparently

Yet somehow they've managed it. Why would you run a company for 40 years that's barely made any profit? You wouldn't would you . . . That's because they do make money, lots of it, but it's conveniently 'spent' on areas of the business that are justified as legitimate costs to the tax man, yet somehow end up in individual's pockets.

Which is all well and good during "normal" times, then an event occurs and suddenly because they haven't shown a profit for many years banks and governments don't want to lend to them as they have no credit rating. This is exactly what happened during COVID and they had to go to private equity and sell assets (787's) to bridge the gap often at extortionate rates. Most other airlines were able to tap the various schemes available from government's however because Virgin decides to run the business the way they do these funds were unavailable to them. It nearly sent the company under as SRB didn't have a lot of spare cash sitting idle and the biggest other shareholder was unable to just give money to the company due to limitations imposed by the US government for their own bailout.

Sometimes being the smartest in the room doesn't always work out and in Virgin's case, every time there's a hiccup in the world economy the company is literally right on the edge fighting for survival a la GFC, Gulf War 1 and 2 where many crew were made redundant.

I’m not sure there are many sure things in this industry, and most of us realise that long-term career decisions have an element of guesswork and come with their own positives and negatives.

Is VS riskier than others, probably… but they wouldn’t have been bailed out by their investors if the underlying business wasn’t reasonably sound and they will make a profit this year and pay off debt. IAG have debt measured in the billions too and even EK, who make enough money to pay everyone a 6 month bonus every year made extremely deep cuts during COVID (and other downturns)

Flying the most modern big twin’s from the worlds most slot constrained airport and can’t make a profit….hmmmm

It’s all about LHR slots and the valuable portfolio that VS has built up over time. Similar to the bmi situation. The company owners have a huge incentive to support the continuation of the AOC - without it, the slots are no longer theirs.

Warning to All Pilots Considering Virgin Atlantic

It has come to attention that a group of pilots, informally referred to within the aviation industry as The Virgin 10, (this number could be higher) have faced significant challenges during their training with Virgin Atlantic. This group, reportedly consisting of both type-rated and non-type-rated First Officers (FOs) and Senior First Officers (SFOs) recruited last year, allegedly received substandard training for their type ratings. Unfortunately, after failing to pass line training, these individuals were subsequently dismissed for not meeting the required standard.

For the second-largest long-haul carrier in the UK, such actions raise serious concerns about training quality and fair treatment of pilots. If these reports are accurate, they reflect poorly on the airline’s management and training oversight.

Additionally, there appears to be an ongoing trend of pilot departures, some leaving after just a year in the company, which may explain Virgin Atlantic’s continuous recruitment efforts.

If you are considering joining Virgin Atlantic, exercise extreme caution. Reports indicate that the airline may not be providing adequate training support, and pilots who struggle to meet the required standard are being dismissed without proper remediation. This could put your career at risk.

Prospective and current pilots should thoroughly research the company’s training programs and speak to current employees before making any commitments.

There has been a lot of bad behaviour from a minority of new recruits.

Drunkenness, arrogance, throwing up in public, throwing punches due to alcohol, urinating in public, being rude and harassing cabin crew sexually, etc.

Of course it’s ’not their fault’, it’s bad training.

Nothing to do with being too young thinking they knew it all.

Inexperienced with both long haul flying and life in general.

Its today’s society blame someone else.

Good riddance.

The final interview is... odd. Largely scenario based reactions to their DEI philosophy.
I offered conciliatory approaches (in flight) - the feedback was that they wanted immediate confrontation. Not my approach at all, so we didn't click. The ones they did take were on several counts, ones we were glad to see the back of.

If true, this is a massive systematic failure of VS flight operations and in particular the training department.
Is the training department actually reviewing the syllabi, Training Captain behaviour and expectations?
Are we seeing a cultural issue within the training dept?
What is the (allegedly) lazy head of training actually doing to discover the root cause of the high failure rate, and addressing it?
Does the new DFO (or whatever his title is) have a view?
What are BALPA doing to support the 10.

OK, it’s a lot of questions, but they need answering. It can’t all be the trainees fault.

hmmm, interesting post. So all 10 are wrong and you are right?
Sounds a bit arrogant eh? Are you part of the VS problem?

Lots of “I’ve heard” and “If true” speculation from people that don’t know (guess it is a rumour network after all).

From my experience the training department is excellent, with a large amount of incredibly experimented and approachable trainers. However it is probably not the place to come if you want to be spoonfed and don’t want to put in the work yourself. Those that have struggled have been the types that have made the most of their time downroute and then not turned up knowing basic stuff from the airfield brief or oceanic procedures. Sounds like they’ve now given themselves a catchy victim group nickname and taken to the forums to blame others for their own failings.

You can dress it up any way you want to, but 10 failures points to a systemic issue.

Or it points to the explosion in industry recruitment leading to individuals getting opportunities they aren't ready for, both in terms of experience and in maturity.

Or you can view 10 failures as about 5%, which is hardly systemic, despite your attempt to sensationalise it

Absolutely.

It’s a systemic issue with these ‘failed’ people they employed who didn’t respect or appreciate the opportunity they were given.

They only have themselves to blame.

You sounds like a voice from the dark ages of Aviation. A nasty and unsafe world where the captain was always right, and where Trainung Captains were feared.
You do not know what they did or did not respect or appreciate.

The world has moved on. It’s no longer governed by an ethos of Check until you break ‘em, it’s all about training to competence. The big T.
AQP, ATQP, EBT is all about training.

10 failures in a small airline like VS is an issue, and it is systemic. How can so many fail? What extra training were they given? Were they properly guided?
Or were they subject to people like you who sounds like someone with a chip on their shoulder because the news guys had not gone through what you may have done in the RAF, RN, Laker and so on.

”They only have themselves to blame” - that’s a disgusting comment not worthy of a professional pilot.

Just because people are in the training phase, it doesn’t necessarily mean that being asked to leave the business is training related. There are a whole raft of potential issues that can occur