Originally Posted by
zondaracer
Full disclosure: I have both FAA and EASA licenses/Certificates. I’m American with right to work in Europe.
I did pursue flying in Europe at one point but the job prospects and overall career progression seemed better for me in the US. I came back to the US and flew at a regional for four years, and pay has since come up and is actually pretty decent now. I just got hired by a US LCC and a US legacy carrier and I doubt I’ll return to Europe for work. The pay and conditions at the legacies in the US are hard to beat.
Having said that, there are some decent jobs in Europe and you can live pretty well if you live in the right place, plus the benefits of social healthcare and retirement etc.
Also, if you have right to work, you don’t need to be a native English speaker to get a job in the US. The regionals are hiring like crazy and I have plenty of friends who are not native speakers of English and are flying at various companies here with a green card. The biggest thing is getting a 4 year degree if you want some of the more competitive jobs, but if you are working on your master’s degree then you already have that box checked.
And yes, you can convert EASA ATPL to FAA ATP. Getting the FAA training done is a bit quicker than EASA because of the difference in knowledge testing requirements.
First of all thanks for your reply.
Yes exactly, pay-wise it's impossible to beat US carriers, also it takes ages to upgrade over here.
What I thought of was getting my ATPL here in Europe, trying my luck to find a job, and if things don't work out as expected I'd move to the US.
Sounds much simpler than it is, especially because of the license conversion. Do you know how that would work (I think that I probably would have to go through the whole training again, which would be extremely expensive ... paying for training twice is unfortunately not affordable for me)?
That's nice to hear, that getting a job in the US for someone like me is not impossble. That gives me some hope