easyJet MPL stage 3 selection pre-trainingairline-selection
07 Jul 2026
Stage 3 is final part of the MPL selection process. On getting the email confirming I’d passed stage 2, I was given a link to book a date for this final stage. When I went in however, all the slots for the next 2 months were taken with no more available. This was mentioned as a possibility in the e-mail, and just means that they were awaiting the next batch of dates to be confirmed by easyJet.
They split the EASA and UK CAA cadets into separate assessment days, with around two days per month for each one. A couple of weeks later I got an e-mail from CAE saying they had released new dates onto the site, and so I signed in straight away and booked onto the first available date.
Once booked onto an assessment day, you are then also able to book onto an interview preparation webinar, run by CAE, which they strongly encourage you to attend.
The actual day it’s self is made up of a group exercise and an interview, with the entire day being run by easyJet themselves rather than CAE.
I’m super excited to say I passed this stage too, and so as with my post on stage 2, I’ll cover in this one, how I prepared for it, what happened on the day, and then what the next steps are.
Before the day
As mentioned, CAE put on a webinar to help everyone prepare and also to give some tips. Having been to the Airline Prep course from BALPA, there was not a huge amount of new information for me in here in terms of tips for the assessment, however it was a really excellent presentation & did cover a lot of what I’d picked up from the course in a very short space of time. What was particularly good about it, was that they highlighted exactly what easyJet were specifically looking for, and how they liked to see the competencies demonstrated, they also gave some information around where previous candidates had fallen shot, with that feedback coming directly from the easyJet assessors, which was invaluable.
It was scheduled to be an hour, but actually lasted 1 hour 45, as they also covered more details about the course structure, and locations that you were likely to be sent to during the training. They were also happy to take questions throughout, and stayed on the call until everyone’s questions were covered. It was a single session for both EASA and UK CAA applicants, so there were some elements that wouldn’t be relevant to the licence type you’re applying for, but that was all clearly indicated.
Five days before the assessment, I was sent a link to an online portal which had a number of tasks to complete before the interview. There was nothing taxing in there, it was mostly explanations of how the portal works, a video with some information about easyJet and a document, which listed the competencies they will be looking for, the company values, and what both of those mean to easyJet.
Preparation
From the AirlinePrep course and the webinar mentioned above, I had lots of tips and a good expectation of what was going to be expected of me.
Similarly to stage 2, I took a few days off work beforehand so I could fully focus. In that time I trawled the easyJet website, including its corporate and careers areas, read up as much as possibly could about the company values, strategy and financials. Due to the timing of the assessment day, it wasn’t very long after the quarterly reports had come out, and if you search you can actually find the recordings of these being presented by the CEO, and so I watched these and took notes too - I found it invaluable to get an insight into the issues and challenges that the company are currently facing, as well as how their strategy is helping them deal with it, not just in the UK but also across the European network.
Similarly to stage 2, this assessment was done entirely online, this time via Microsoft Teams.
I made sure that my camera and microphone were all set up correctly, I opted to use a headset so that my audio would be very clear, rather than relying on the inbuilt microphone.
I also staged my background to some degrees as well - I have a number of models of easyJet aircraft, I made sure they were visible (but not distracting).
The assessment day
The online portal had updated with timings and links to separate teams meetings for each of the stages of the interview.
The first one started promptly at 9am, and began with all the candidates for the day on the same call, as well as one of the assessors, who was running the day. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, and we did a quick round the room to check of everyone’s tech was working correctly.
We were then given a presentation about easyJet, covering what would happen on successful completion of the MPL with CAE, and your first 6 months as an easyJet pilot, followed by some time for any questions.
There was then a short gap before the group exercise began. We were split into two equal groups for this, using the link from the online portal to join the correct call.
Group exercise
I cannot share too much about the actual detail of the exercise, as it was made very clear to us that we shouldn’t, given they may re-use the scenario for future assessments, and doing so could unfairly advantage future candidates, however if you have read my post covering the airline prep course, the scenario given was very similar in format to those.
There were multiple assessors in the room, made up of a mix of cabin managers, and pilots, who had all been at the company for over 10 years. Again they set a very relaxed conversational tone, rather than it being very formal. One of the assessors even asked about & complimented the easyJet models I had behind me!
The initial details of the scenario was read aloud to us, and then were given 5 minutes of solo reading time, where some additional information, specific to, and only visible to, each individual was revealed. We then had 30 minutes to discuss as a group and come up with a solution together, with a curveball thrown in halfway through.
It was up to us as a group to manage our time and work together, and was a chance to demonstrate the pilot competencies in action. The assessors had their cameras switched off during the exercise, so it was just the applicants with cameras on during the 30 mins.
The main bit of advice for these is to make sure you contribute, as if you say nothing the assessors can’t give you any marks. I ensured I voiced my ideas, listened to, and encouraged others, as well as making sure I was not taking over anyone or dominating the group.
As a group, we did come to a solution within the time limit (I had a stopwatch going, along with one other in the group).
Once it was over, the assessors switched their cameras on again, and gave us the opportunity to reflect and feedback on how we thought the exercise had gone - I knew from the course that this was a further chance to score points, and demonstrate the competencies and company values again, so made sure I spoke up here, and was actually the first one to comment. I made sure what I said was balanced and a fair reflection, as well as giving an idea for how we could have approached it differently. I noted some of the other candidates had clearly relaxed early here and did not add anything to that discussion.
We were all done by around 11am, and next up was the actual interview.
Interview
The slots were assigned in advance and visible in the online portal. For me, I must have had one of the last of the day as my interview was from 3:00-4:30pm, so I had around four hours of free time to kill. I used it to try and relax a little, and also spend a little bit more time going over examples I had prepared and what I wanted to say.
I joined the call a few minutes early and was let into the meeting at exactly 3pm. There were two experienced captains performing my interview, one who had been recruiting for some time and another who was new to the recruitment team. They introduced themselves and again set a relatively informal tone, with another mention of and appreciation for the easyJet models I had in the background.
We then got into the main part of the interview. Starting off with the classic, introduce yourself and tells us a bit about you and your background.
Next up was a series of questions on motivation, why a commercial pilot, why easyJet, what do you know about the challenges the company face, their competitors, the role of a pilot etc - I must have ticked the required boxes here fairly rapidly as we seemed to move on quite quickly, although the nerves were certainly getting to me, and I forgot to mention most of the things I had planned to, particularly on the ‘why easyJet’.
The second half of the interview was specifically on the pilot competencies, again like the group exercise, I’m not able to just list out the questions I was asked here, but the type and style are not hard to find online, as they were primarily in the format of “Can you tell me about a time when X”, and you’re ideally expected to give an example in the STAR format.
I had a few further probing question to some of the responses I gave, mostly just to pick out something specific which enabled them to tick the box for that competency, and after those follow-up questions, I often got a thumbs up from the assessor, and it actually just felt quite conversational, like they were really trying to help me out.
For one of my answers, they even said “I think that actually covered X competency as well, so we won’t need to ask that one”.
Overall I think that part of the interview lasted maybe 40-45 minutes, and then I had the optional chance to ask a few questions myself.
I think it’s always important to have a few lined up here, for any sort of interview, and in a pilot interview, it’s just another chance to show interest in the company, and demonstrate the communication competency again.
I had one about the rostering, and how they found the fixed vs flexible pattern; easyJet had recently been in the news about a possible takeover bid, so I asked what their thoughts on that were; and finally I asked what their most memorable flight was.
I think we were chatting through these questions for maybe 15-20 minutes, they gave me some incredibly in-depth and interesting answers & it really just felt like a conversation between three people who love flying at that point. I made sure to thank them for taking the time to give me such good answers, and they closed off by saying it was a pleasure to meet me and wished me good luck!
So I left the interview feeling like it’d gone quite well.
In the hours afterwards though, all I could think of was the facts and information that I’d planned to bring up and had simply forgotten to, & have to admit I also didn’t sleep particularly well that night, with my mind still racing and doubting if I’d done enough on the motivation section.
Results and what’s next
They had mentioned at the start of the day that we’d find out by lunchtime the following day if we had been successful, it was one of the longest mornings of my life waiting for that notification on my phone to get the result, and just after 1pm, it came through.
When I saw the words “We are delighted to confirm…” all of those worries about how I’d done melted away & I was just ecstatic!!
So now I’m back in the hands of CAE, who’ll be in touch in the next few days hopefully with some more details, but prior to the assessment day, they had given me some provisional course start dates, and asked me to give a preference to reserve a spot, so if all goes to plan, I will be starting with CAE, as an easyJet MPL cadet, on the 4th January 2027 - and I can’t wait to get started!!