{"id":480115,"date":"2026-07-17T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/why-virgin-atlantic-targeting-40-raf-pilots-britain-f-35-fleet-flyable\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:00:11","slug":"why-virgin-atlantic-is-targeting-the-40-raf-pilots-keeping-britains-f-35-fleet-flyable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=480115","title":{"rendered":"Why Virgin Atlantic Is Targeting The 40 RAF Pilots Keeping Britain’s F-35 Fleet Flyable"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom only has around four dozen trained F-35B fighter jet pilots<\/a><\/span> and around 150 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet pilots. Losing even a handful of these hard-to-replace pilots to commercial airlines is painful. They are targeted by British airlines, with Virgin Atlantic directly targeting them in its recruitment ads in 2024. As the Royal Air Force is so much smaller than the United States Air Force (and Marines\/Navy), it lacks depth in pilots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Atlantic has campaigned to entice former RAF fast jet pilots to fly for them on long-haul transatlantic routes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,748,85,532],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-f-35","category-uk","category-virgin-atlantic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t