Flying in Euland with a 5/5 roster eas a four year vacation, outdoor activities, culture, food, and lots of new friends. The best part, with the exception of the Canarys, I was never ,ore than 2 1/2 hours from any destination.

Also, DAL had a $225 ticket to the US with half the travel time. I would have enjoyed finishing my last years of flying there.

I'm with a good carrier further east with business class travel back home. Not as many days off between patterns though.

All in all the best choicenI made 22 years ago, with what happened to the carriers on the US.

As has been previously stated in other threads ,take a 2 week trip to the country where you would like to work in order to get some kind of feel for the culture and then make a well thought out decision from that point.

http://imageshack.us/a/img708/2789/birdfluflight.gif

Great thread with some well thought out responses. I don't fly as an expat but do fly into Asia and Europe, beside the good ole US of A. I think giving advise to anyone considerably younger, let alone family (and close family at that!) is always going to be fraught with challenges/dilemmas. First off, hind sight is great, its easy to second guess your decisions when you can see the consequences after the fact. As some have alluded, sometimes life take you where you go rather than you controlling events.
Its tough when your young and passionate about something (flying, girls, motorcycles, making money, in this context, all the same ;)) There are more things to life than flying, just try seeing that when you "love" to fly.
Living in America. I like to travel, I like seeing the world. Had things turned out differently, I think I'd have made a great (happy) expat pilot. That said, I've lived close to my parents most of my career. My kids know (knew) their grand parents. Had I lived overseas they would never have known my parents the way they do. Is that important. Only you can decide that.
As far as the flying is concerned. Flying outside the USA is different, not bad different but different. Not like it would have been 25 or more years ago. Than it would have been much more of an adventure, maybe even with a greater element of risk. I can't speak for working for any of the Asian, Middle east, or European airlines, but I suspect, reading on APC, that while there are some striking differences, the similarities are becoming great every year. The one thing I think (and it is strictly IMHO) is that the pilot/flight attendant interface may be considerably better (overseas) to the young, (un)attached male who's interest transcends the cockpit.
Life is more than just flying. A sucky airline at home, for some, is better than any flying anywhere else. Don't let your passion to flying drive all your decisions. Family, friends, your non aviation interests need to be taken into account. If you go overseas and see it as indentured servitude, than you are making a big mistake. Continue to network at home, downsize your dreams or plot a different course. At the end of the day, it still a job. ( a really good one if your lucky :))

Now, let say you were a former military guy so your son/daughter has lived in various culture very immersed and loves it.
What type of thing would you tell them to do early in there career, to get overseas flying as early in the career as possible. Remember that they are fresh graduates, with only a c.f.i. and 400 hours.

Well to really be marketable and in demand you need to be an experienced jet captain. So the quickest route to getting jet PIC time would be a good start (something bigger than a CRJ/ERJ).

There are FO opportunities here though. Some of the low cost operators hire foreign FOs: Jetstar Asia and Tiger in Singapore come to mind. I think they still require 500 hours of jet time though. Those would probably be the jobs you could get with the least amount of experience (with the exception of the buy a job gigs in Indonesia). Working for the low costs you won't be living the "Asian dream" so to speak. You're not making as much money and don't get a whole lot of time off to travel. As a stepping stone it can be good though as most of them have reasonably quick upgrades.

As for contract jobs, the only one I can think of that upgrades FOs to Captains is Air Japan. They require more experience than the Low costs and a P1 jet rating but if you can get in, it's a much better job IMHO. The Dominican can probably provide much more detail about Air Japan.

Then of course there are the middle east airlines: Emirates, Etihad and Qatar being the "big" ones. Kind of on the outskirts of Asia, but still technically on the continent. Qatar is probably the easiest to get on with as they don't require jet time I believe. Heavy turboprop command time is sufficient (Dash 8, ATR...etc). Emirates requires 2000 hours of jet time and Etihad requires a type rating on one of their aircraft I think. There's also FlyDubai. I don't know anything about them but there's a thread just above/below this one about them.

Flying a lot to get hours does not give you job security. Ask the Singapore expats who did not have their contracts renewed(some after 20+ years). Bottom line, you are a hired gun, a mercenary, and for whatever reason, when they no longer need you, you are toast.

Yes, there are the stories of bankrupt airlines, terminated pension plans, etc. in the US. But, there is a seniority system, and if you are first in line when the hiring cycle starts, life can be very good!

Having spent 26 years with a US major, and 10 as an expat, there is no doubt in my mind, go with the US major.

Jalways is another example.....! You are of course 100% correct, I and others have written about the pros and cons extensively of the seniority vs. contract systems and conditions. But there is one thing this career has as a common denominator and it is that all is subject to timing, the industry is cyclical by nature and it really depends when you join, I have colleagues that have been furloughed twice already from the same airline and very bitter about the whole deal, I have been hired a couple of times by that very secure job that was meant to last my entire career, it didn't turn out to be that way. Funny how I was having this exact conversation with an Air Canada pilot that was at Jalways and got sacked, we were talking about the rumors of JAL wanting to hire foreign pilots again, he was adamant about going back if they do. My point is that as I posted earlier in this thread, this is a matter that doesn't have a simple "definitely this over the other answer" one of my friends resigned his seniority at a major and decided to remain working contract, to an outsider it would seem ludicrous but to him that has moved with his wife to an exotic local on a beachfront property with a maid helping the wife with the home shores and at his stage in life (kids grown and independent) he is happy, as incomprehensible this may seem to some. I was having this same conversation with a FedEx pilot a few months back, he was almost annoyed when I told him that I didn't have my app anywhere due to the long overdue hiring cycle, he started to mention all the advantages of the seniority system and the ALPA secured jobs yadda, yadda! As if I needed a lesson:rolleyes: after he pretty much did a background check and looked for skeletons that would restore back the space, time continuum but couldn't find a reason that would make sense to him as to why I would choose such horrible and insecure work conditions, he asked Why then? "I'm happy" I know it is hard to swallow but it is not you it has to make sense to, sorry but this doesn't have a one size fits all answer.

Over the last 40 years I don't think there is any one choice that would have worked for everyone, and aviation is still changing rapidly. You make your choices and take your chances.

Some pilots got hired at a flag carrier and retired happily 35 years later. A lot of others, not so much.

I have seen my friends around me make some great choices (furloughed at a major, now 10 year Jetblue Captains), and others make not such good choices (leave Fedex 15 years ago for a major, now furloughed). A lot of it was just luck.

15 years ago Fedex and UPS were mostly domestic night flyers hauling rubber #$%$$ in and out of their hubs. Now 60 pct of their pilots fly great international schedules, with huge amounts of time off, with some of the highest payscales in the world. Who knew? Lots of flag carriers around the world are just now getting creamed by competition from low cost carriers and now the likes of Emirates and Etihad. I am still trying to figure out where Emirates is planning on flying 90 380's every day.

Almost all of the expats that I flew with, that were taking a "break" from their real job, had a great time. But we had that safety net of a job to go back to. I flew two different contract jobs and had the best time I ever had as an airline pilot.

I will go back to contract flying at my first opportunity.

Some good points by everybody. It's all a risk reward scenario. Staying in the US and working for a major is considered the safe option (the last decade would challenge that assumption though). The expat life is more risky but the reward can be greater. More money and lower taxes mean I have netted more money in my ~10 years overseas than I would have in probably 25 years back home. The risk? I can be sent home at any time with a small payout (or no payout if the contract is up). Or if I get seriously ill or injured I get a one off payout and am unemployed (private insurance can alleviate that risk somewhat). Good financial planning with that extra money can alleviate the risks too. Yes I could be unemployed at any time but if that happens I can probably afford to live for a couple of years before I'd even have to think about adjusting my lifestyle. Another 10 years doing what I'm doing now without any big changes from the last 10 years and I can probably afford to retire very comfortably if I want. I'll be much younger than 65 at that time.

Many (most?) of us expats only left home because the industry at home went to hell. I had never even thought about it before. But now than I'm here, I wouldn't go back. It's definitely not for everybody though.

But really, it depends on family and scheduling, IMHO. Can and will your family adjust? Or do they even want to try and live an expat job? Mamma ain't gonna have her momma to lean on. So you leave your family at home....does your carrier offer a commuting roster/schedule? Some do, some don't. Are the bosses and the guys/gals you fly with of a like culture, or are you basically solo in your BIG jet? And do you have recall rights at one of the majors or the ability to go back to one's carrier because of no seniority issues? What would be one's exit plan?

But the really big question is, are or is there alternatives at home? If so, stay, I would say. And what's your age and marital status? If you have a few years to YOUR retirement, not so big of a deal, but if you have 20 more years....ask yourself where you would like to be at that time frame. Can you do 20 years away from one's extended family, leave the culture you grew up in, difficulty with languages etc. and managements that ususally don't see you as a loyal employee, but rather one who might just leave when a better deal comes along.

It's not whether or not I would do it again, but rather could you, given the questions you MUST ask yourself, before deciding to cross the big divide. Many times you might think you have the answers, but things change, all the time. When I first got to my current job, for the first two, almost three years, pilots could manage to get a minimum of 10-14 days off in a row every month. Of course that's when we were flying 65-70 hours a month. Today? Not allowed to have more than 15 days off a month with no more than five in a row (vacation the exception) and many flying a HARD 90=95 hours. And some, over 100 hours considering that time not at a control seat does not count when you are the relief crew.

Just mentioning some of the differences.