smooth

I'm a third year college student hoping to graduate next year with all flight ratings (private to mei, cfi, and cfii). I'm most intereted in oversea flying, could any one please advise me on how to jump start my career? thanks much.

rickair7777

Overseas flying is usually done by Major airlines. You'll need 5000+ hours and 1000+ turbine PIC, turbojet experience prefered. Even then, junior pilots don't usually do the overseas stuff.

If you actually want to work for a foriegn airline, there are several different varities:

1) European: Training and medical requirements are MUCH higher than US. You'll need JAA, not FAA certifiactes. But since these airlines will generally only hire citizens, there's probably no point in worrying about them.

2) Asian/Arab airlines: These often hire western pilots for both CA and FO, but you will generally need previous major airline or military experience in large transport category aircraft. Some hire directly, others work through contractors. Can pay well and have good benefits.

3) Cathay Pacific: Based in Hong Kong, these guys will hire VERY low time pilots for 747/777 SO jobs. The bay and benies are great, but they are VERY picky. The medical exam and interview are unbelievably grueling, but if you're up to it, you could get a job with less than 2000 hours. You have to live in HK at first, but eventually you could transfer to their US cargo bases. Again, a great opportunity if you can swing it. But you will need a PERFECT background and medical history and you had better be smarter than the average pilot, no joke. Don't waste your time and money if you're not certain of your background, it's a lot of effort to travel to Hong Kong for the 2 interviews.

In order to qualify for any of these jobs, you need to

1) Work as a CFI to get 1000+ TT and 100+ ME
2) Take a job at a regional airline as an FO (you can apply to Cathy now)
3) Upgrade to regional captain, get 1000 turbine PIC then you can apply to most major and foriegn airlines which hire US pilots.

It sounds like you're looking WAY down the road...you need to conentrate on getting a CFI job and building some multi-engine time.

bertramcheeks22

whats so different about our medical standards in comparison to overseas?

i have 1st class and it wasnt too bad...

FlyerJosh

Overseas flying can be very difficult to break into. Especially depending on where you want to fly. Europe is particularly difficult.

As a low time pilot, one option is to fly for AirServ International. It's a humanitarian flight department that is based outside of Washington, DC, but operates in Africa flying mainly Kingairs and Caravans.

There are some opportunites to fly contract work overseas (CRJ, DH8-400, Airbus, 747s), mostly in the Middle East or Asia. Most of these jobs require at least 3000TT and some experience in turbine aircraft as well as PIC time (Some also require that you have held an ATP certificate for at least 2 years before applying). Take a look at some of the companies that fill contract work: PARC Aviation, Hawaii Aviation Services, IASCO, etc.

Overseas medicals are actually difficult to get. Most overseas carriers have very strict limitations on height/weight, BP, cholesterol, eyesight (both uncorrected and corrected), amongst others...