Hi. I had a chance to visit the Emirates training academy and tour Dubai for a week. All of this was outside of pilot recruitment. It was pure academic. We talk to people at the free trade zone, coke-a-cola managers, multi mosque and cultural tours and university lectures on history and economics. We even had a chance to go to Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi.

From what I can gather, people are generally honest and straight forward about the positive and negatives. That, in and of itself, is refreshing. No one is trying to hide the reality of life there. As far as I am concerned, that speaks highly their integrity. No hard sell. If you don't like, move along.

People work hard overseas. But they get compensated to do it. Better than their home country. US Airliners are going the productivity path, but lack the compensation and honesty.

 

Johnso;

This particular person was about...30? And had a steady girlfriend who is also working over there, I think they are planing to get married, no kids yet.

Obviously it's not for some, but if you want to be an 'airline pilot' and the US Majors are not hiring, and the RJ operators are parking 50 seaters and furloughing...well...where else are you going to go to get an "Airline Pilot" job?

Globalization is coming, that's not a "Fear Grenade", that's a (sad) fact. The only ones who can stop it work in DC. They get paid by A4A and lots of other lobby groups. ALPA gives them some money too, but not nearly enough to keep them from selling our jobs out, if/when the time comes for that.

Look back 30 years in this industry, now try to project what it -could- look like 30 years from now. How many legacy carriers were there then? How about now? How about 30 years from now?

Oh, and I've still got about 12 years until I turn 65, so today is hardly the 'end of my career'.

I'll be very surprised if things are not very different in this industry in the next 10 years. You however, have more to lose than I do, I've already lost my retirement and lots of pay. You may want to plan on that, by the time you are near the end of your career.

That's not meant as a fear grenade, that's meant as a wake up call.

 

Heck, all the Feds have to do is remove the ownership restrictions now in place. EK or the Chinese buy up or establish a US subsidiary outside of the present "system", that is, ALPA and all the contract history. Look at the US auto industry, not the Detroit one, the one spread all over the South--the Japanese or Koreans. Imagine what two or three of those in the airline industry could do.

Does anyone think a well-funded startup connected to EK couldn't hire all the A320 pilots it wanted at $120,000 for captains with Obamacare for healthcare and just a 401

Gf

 

You and I are agreeing too much lately the one thing that has driven the salaries abroad is the fact that the available pool of pilots lacks experience, over here in the US is totally opposite, due to stagnation after 9/11, the separation of the profession into two distinct classes, regional and mainline and the further delay of age 65, has created a situation where you have many overqualified individuals in the position they hold, the guys that are holding 777 F/O at places like Delta for example, are individuals that hold the qualifications (more than the qualifications actually) to be captains, you have guys with less total time and 10 years younger on average holding wide body command in the expat market, in the regionals for example, 10,000+ hours captains is the common denominator now, you look into any of the regionals that have been around for a while now, Pinnacle, Express Jet, COMAIR and I'll be willing to bet that close to 40% of their captains are at or above 10,000 hours of total time and a good 6,000 hours of jet PIC in all kinds of WX operations and flying into some of the most congested air spaces in the world, that level of experience will have you as 744 captain abroad because of the lack of experienced pilots. In the US we don't only have the largest pool of pilots but also the experience level is too high, there is no other place on earth right now where a start up can find all the qualified and current pilots they want, except here in the US.

 

Typical FO at work - 10,000+ hrs w/4 type ratings.

Asked two FO's last trip how much time they had - 17,000 and 12,000 hrs(lawyer - bid low time).

Rare to find FO with less than 10,000 hrs. Highest was 25,000 hrs. I think he had 8 type ratings.