hurricanechaser

I would have to agree with rickair7777. I worked at a school that did JAA training. For the most part the foreign students went back home. They would never stay in the states and fly a RJ for less than 30K a year when they can fly a 737 for more with only 250 hours of total time.

Some that did stay were only building up instructor time to go back to England and be more competitive with their Total Times when applying for the foreign airlines in Europe. And yes some of these Europeans were "self-funded" or "parent-funded".

SkyHigh

Long ago the shipping industry learned that as a transportation company they could register their ships in nations that offered the lowest taxes and hire crews from places where the cost of living is far less then in the developed world.

I see the same thing happening to the airlines. Crews from a nation like India could be trained cheaply and by the boatload to fly planes with a US legacy airline paint job but is actually owned by a Middle-eastern Company.

Regional airlines could be staffed by people from overseas to fly a few weeks at a time in the US. Open skies has made this kind of thing more possible. I do not see foreign pilots being trained here as a good thing at all. Sure they will leave after they are trained but they will come back.

Skyhigh

rickair7777

Security concerns will not allow this any time soon, at least not until GWOT (uuuhm, I mean OCO) is over. Maybe next century.

Open skies is not the same as cabotage.

SkyHigh

What I am imagining is a company in someplace like India that cranks out pilots by the boatload to send them over here on trips. They would go through the same security screening as pilots do now. Air India already pulls into the gate at JFK.

What is the difference if they do the same in a plane with a Delta paint job?

Skyhigh

SkyHigh

In any case even if you assume that only half are for the US market it is still far too many pilots. The legacy airlines have not hired much over the last ten years and promise to hire a trickle over the next ten years to cover retirements.

If you were to assume 4000 new commercial pilots per year over a 20 year period for a handful of good jobs. You are still looking at something like ten to one odds.

It is self evident in the fact that there are so many pilots sitting around these forums that there is a glut of pilots out there. If everyone were able to get the job of their dreams then this forum, and the few others like it, would not exist.

Skyhigh

rickair7777

Could happen, after you overcome the political, labor, and security concerns.

I actually think public perception would the biggest hurdle. The public is not real happy about colgan...what would they think about 200 hour indians flying their airplane.

While air india does come over here, most of the pax are not US citizens...they tend to fly US flag carriers. They are allowed to operate here for reasons of reciprocity, not so they can take over our domestic ops.

Also...the developing world and asia do have a real pilot shortage, they would have to hire US pilots to operate the flights anyway.

And foreign operators don't pay any worse than US airlines for the most part.

Even if you get over all those issues, the security thing would still explode in your face eventually. We are pretty careful about who we let have access to our cockpits...you have to get here, then get authorized for GA training, then get authorized again for jet training, plus 121 background checks. Foreign pilots with unusual backgrounds get looked at hard by the IC too... All foreign countries are not going to look at certain religious affiliations as hard as we do. Eventually a terrorist would slip through the cracks, or an established pilot would "see the light" at some point and take up the jihad.

Ultimately it would require a lot of time, effort, and money to overcome the existing precedent, and foreign pilots are simply not cheaper or more plentiful than US pilots. Pilots tend to come from the upper-middle class, which has the same economic expectations the world over, thanks to globalization.

The silver lining to all this erosion of pay, benefits, and QOL in America is that we are now closer to the global average and therefore less susceptible to being undercut in the highly-skilled job market.

Time2Fly

What is GWOT and OCO?

rickair7777

War on terror.

slough

I think obtaining funding for flight training is the biggest hurdle for America to ramp up its flight training. All the government relief for student loans is for federal loans, while flight training loans are private. The job market has improved and hopefully will stay strong, it has lots of tailwinds to keep it going.

Cubdriver

Good point about finding being difficult now, but I would make the claim that it was too easy before the Recession, and credit is more line line with the current reality of the pilot job market. There was a time when you could justify a duesy of a loan for fast-track flight training, but the equation does not work so well now. New students need to pay their way as they go else self-fund themselves using savings and other assets. If you come out of a school like AllATPs with $80k in debt to repay, you are going to be crushed by the pay at most pilot jobs.