I was looking at Singapore Air's career page... but couldnt find out if you HAVE to be a singapore resident or what??? how one would even go about getting on with them.

any ideas...????

 

I might be wrong, but i think you have to be a singapore resident to do the cadet pilot program. If you have the hours for direct entry FO you should be good.

 

This forum is great for info on American companies, but a better place to find out info about overseas stuff is on pprune.com or even the foreign section of this web site. I know they have foreign pilots there and I know they don't have the best record as far as treating pilots well (the Singapore government does what it wants and screwed them on pay when they lost money for maybe one quarter as opposed to bankruptcy for most carriers in the west to force pay cuts). You'll find out lots more on the other web boards.

 

A couple of our sim instructors went to SQ from NZ to finish off careers. Those of them that I have spoken to say they enjoyed it, they were treated well, the money was pretty decent but they worked very hard. If you are on the 744 fleet you fly both pax and freight. My GS instructor on the 777 is ex SQ and a Singapore national. He said that one could fly a pax machine into LHR and fly a freighter out, and it ended up with a good amount of the day's worked being away from base.

Some initially cringe at the pay, but read the fine print as it all adds up. It was better for our guy's with the way out dollar exchanges, so you might want to check that out for your home country.

If you fly a large glass airplane with good time you likely stand a good chance these day's as the expat pilot world plays musical airlines (thing's are good in our world so check all your options).

Just my opinion, but I find many of the people posting on pprune do not work for the airlines they post about, nor much of the time are they even pilots. It is full of plane spotters pretending they are something that they are not. There is some great information, but one has to read between the lines, and go through pages of posts at times, to get decent usefull information.

 

Let me second that. Not only do you have to wander through countless posts put up by non-pilots, you also have to wade through the ridiculous flame-baiting posts some people put up just to attract attention.

That said, there is a very decent amount of information on pprune if you're willing to poke around. Your best bet is to try to identify the more knowledgeable, even-keeled posters; they'll quickly become evident as you read. Best wishes!

 

thanks guys... i'm not even to the regionals yet, but just wondering what might be done, and kinda start looking ahead at the different stepping stones i might want to jump on.

 

kdoner,

At this point in your career, Singapore, and almost all the other large-cabin, wide-body airlines, are still a bit out of reach.

However, it's never too early to begin doing legitimate research and mapping out potential career plans. BUT, I'm sure you've noticed that pilots' careers rarely go the way they were planned. Keep working, keep looking, and if you're open to travel, look to developing third-world nations with regional aircraft and narrow-body jets. Upgrades may be quicker, but the QOL may be lower.

Everything depends on your personal pain threshold. Best wishes!

Viliamu