THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE applied to become Aer Lingus recruits – and just 12 made it to the final stage for the latest round of training.

Aer Lingus welcomed its newest group of recruits today, who will all be taking part in its pilot cadetship programme.

The 12 who made it through come from the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Germany.

So, what’s in store for them?

The training course is 14 months long, and will kick off at the end of this month with flight training organisation FTEJerez, in Jerez, Spain.

They won’t be in the air straight away – first, they will undertake five months of ground school. That will be followed by basic flying on single and multi-engine aircraft and aircraft simulators.

Then the cadets will make their way back to Dublin for more training, which will include:

• An airline transition course
• Further simulator training
• Safety training

When they’ve successfully completed all of that, cadets will receive their wings and begin to fly the airline’s fleet of Airbus A320 aircraft.

Last May, 20 cadets became fully-fledged Aer Lingus co-pilots and are now flying the airline’s short haul European routes.

This is the third Aer Lingus pilot cadetship programme since 2011. The airline relaunched its aircraft maintenance and engineering apprentice scheme that same year, and recently launched an IT graduate programme.

Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller wished the new recruits success and said: “We believe in investing in the future and giving young people the opportunity to enjoy long and fulfilling careers in aviation.”

Read: These are the 10 safest low-cost airlines in the world (and look who’s flying the flag for Ireland)>