Greetings to all,
I have posted on this board a couple months before, regarding some concerns about life after converting an FAA CPL to EASA ATPL. Initially, the plan was to continue instructing in the States, hopefully apply to a regional airline and work for a couple of years enough to gain the 1,500 hours, line experience, turbine time, etc and THEN consider converting to an ATPL for the EU.
Besides the rather lengthy time interval my original plan imposed, before achieving JAA conversion completion, with questionable conclusions as to whether all the previous experience would put me at a reasonable edge over others applicants in the EU job market ( see
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/fo...ed-europe.html), personal family circumstances that have intervened now dictated a need for me to relocate back to Europe. In an effort to treat everything with optimism (yet also realistically), I am seriously considering starting the conversion process now, while here in the EU; perhpas an earlier start down this anticipated path anyway, will prove more beneficial
I would thus like to seek, if possible, especially from those of you who are currently active in Europe's Flight Ops, an update as to what the status of Europe's aviation market really is, and what it is expected to hold in store? I understand rumors are and always will be aplenty, but is the market really as stagnated and dead as others (besides those from within this forum) have personally told me? Are there any rough ideas as to the presence of a predicable short and long term future with regards to pilot job availability, and if so, what this will mean?
Also, is it really a good time to undergo pilot training under EASA certification at the moment? Has the JAA-EASA switch inadvertently created some unknown legislative gaps/gray areas which will bite me in the rear after I finish converting? Or is it better to just hold my horses for a while, either in starting conversion training, or getting more experience somewhere else (based on my old plan, once the personal circumstances get resolved)?
I do apologize in advance if it seems I'm trying to seek more clarification than what is already available or possible to be known at this point in time for everyone else already here, but I'd just like a more general idea about how things are currently doing, etc, as it is something I lack knowledge in, having been based in the US during all my aviation career up to this point.
Any other advice or words of wisdom are more than welcome
Thank you in anticipation