Recruitment has been understandably delayed, since they can't hold assessment days due to the new national restrictions, and EI aren't the type to set up fairly useless online assessments. The last I heard was that recruitment was going to be conducted in mid/late February, with the first few training courses coming online towards late April, which ties in with the 1st May start date(which is looking like it will be pushed back anyway).

Your assumption is correct in that crew with valid UK AME Medicals/Attestations and valid U.S B1 and C1/D visas will be at the top of the picking list, in addition to having X amount of flying hours in the past 3 years.

Do you know how many hours in the past 3 years ? So will they only do conversion courses not initial?

It'll likely be something along the lines of at least 12 or 18 months currency within the last 3 years, similar to how they recruited Seniors for Gatwick many many many years ago.

EDIT: I know this isn’t for the recruitment of seniors, but they can be as picky as they want given the circumstances and the huge pool of crew they can pick from, so it’ll be the same kind of criteria even for main crew.

Internally we've not been informed of any internal or external main crew recruitment. In fact we've not even been told about the 1st May launch date so i'm unaware where the press got that from?

As far as we are aware, the external recruitment will be for Management staff (base manager, assistant base manager etc) and a handful of pursers, nothing has been said about the recruitment of actual crew, nor has anything been said about us being able to transfer over to the UK operation.

Our union isn't particularly happy with the whole Aer Lingus UK setup, it's all still ongoing I think.

Edit - My mistake, external recruitment is supposedly opening next month for junior and senior cabin crew.

I was at Norwegian when it was starting up in Gatwick. They were quite picky in only wanting crew who had attestations, medicals and flown within the last year. Candidates also had to take all their 5 year reference history to the assessment day ahead of time because they wanted people starting fast. The only thing they didn’t require you to have was the two visas, this was rushed and done at training.

Thankfully I have everything ready to go for when they open recruitment.

Thanks for the updates.

I understand the frustrations of seeing this new base open up, I’ve had a similar situation before. That being said I hope it works out as it’s a great opportunity for northern cabin crew and for Manchester aviation.

I’ll keep an eye out for recruitment. Thank you for all your information.

Any updates or is it all still up in the air?

There are apparently plans in place, they are just not public knowledge yet.

If rumours are to be believed, then see below:

"Essential requirements for Main Crew:"
At least 18 months currency within the last 3 years,
UK CAA Approved Medical OR EASA Medical with at least 2 years validity,
UK CAA Approved Cabin Crew Attestation OR EASA Approved Cabin Crew Attestation with at least 2 years validity,
Have the legal right to live and work in the United Kingdom.
Preferred but not essential:
Valid U.S B1 and C1/D visas (Not being in possession of these will delay your potential start date),
Previous flying experience on the Airbus A32X and Airbus A33X families,
Previous experience working within a Premium Cabin environment.

"Essential Requirements for Purser":
At least 5 years flying experience, with at least 3 years flying as the crew member in charge,
UK CAA Approved Medical OR EASA Medical with at least 2 years validity,
UK CAA Approved Cabin Crew Attestation OR EASA Approved Cabin Crew Attestation with at least 2 years validity,
Valid U.S B1 and C1/D visa(s),
Have the legal right to live and work in the United Kingdom.
Preferred but not essential:
Previous flying experience on the Airbus A32X and Airbus A33X families,
Previous experience working within a Premium Cabin environment.




Take the above with a pinch of salt, it's supposedly been something released internally but I can neither confirm nor deny that, so therefore it's just a rumour for now

Something along those lines was released, not to everybody though. Not seen it personally but from what I heard, the minimum requirements will be around that.

There's been a small handful of internal transferees but none of them have had their transfers accepted yet, so who knows what's really going on.

Supposedly training courses are starting mid-March with an inaugural flight 1st May, with training being done in Manchester, with parts of it to be completed in London & Dublin, although the general consensus among DUB base is that this is likely going to be delayed or even withdrawn completely, as it's all gone quiet on the front.

Thank you for your insider knowledge. Thankfully I meant all the requirements, if they are going to use them that is. I expect a massive delay to the project. It seems the little bit of drip through knowledge we got has slowed massively. Thank you for everything you’ve posted.