Qantas

Qantas is the flag carrier of Australia and, founded in Queensland in 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, one of the oldest airlines in the world still flying. Its long-haul operation runs Airbus A330s, A380s and Boeing 787-9s from Sydney and Melbourne, with A220s and 737s on domestic routes and A321XLRs arriving to replace the older narrowbodies; the group also owns Jetstar, QantasLink and Network Aviation. Its Project Sunrise A350-1000ULRs are intended to open non-stop Sydney flights to London and New York later this decade, which would be the longest scheduled sectors ever flown.

Flying for Qantas

The Qantas Group Pilot Academy at Toowoomba Wellcamp in Queensland is the group's own training route, delivered on its behalf by Flight Training Adelaide. It is worth being clear about what it is and is not: there are no funded cadetships with the Qantas Group, so students pay for their training, but graduates who complete all course requirements by their graduation date are invited to a Qantas Group Accelerate Assessment Centre and may be offered a pilot job with QantasLink, Jetstar or Network Aviation Australia. The group has also funded scholarships worth up to $30,000 towards accommodation and living costs for female, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Mainline Qantas itself recruits experienced pilots directly, with many arriving through the group's own regional and low-cost airlines.

Academy applicants are screened by Flight Training Adelaide through an online aviation-theory assessment, aviation-specific psychometric and skills assessments, a core skills test and an interview. Direct-entry candidates face a separate process: an online psychometric stage — candidate and industry sources point to the SHL battery — followed by an assessment centre with a group exercise, a simulator assessment and a panel interview. Either way there is a computer-based test standing between an applicant and everything else, and it is sat long before anyone looks at a logbook.