rickair7777

Not blind, someday they might need us. Or become a prefecture of the PRC.

havick206

Apparently Air Wisconsin does H1B’s for Canada applicants

MKUltra

My airline is doing it for flight attendants now... eastern European/former Soviet block. It certainly is thinking out of the box. The girls think making 80 bucks a day is a gold mine..

bamike

Are you sure the airline is sponsoring them? H1B is supposed to be for skilled occupations, I don't think flight attendant is on the list of occupations. Maybe those Eastern Europeans are using another visa program?

MKUltra

Good question.. but they are bringing them in now..

I worked for a company where we had people sweeping the floors from India and they were qualified as "chemist"

bamike

I looked at the data, in 2017 Air Whiskey successfully filed 4 H1B, all of them for CRJ FOs. Looks like Piedmont tried to do 9 H1Bs, 5 were approved and 4 were denied.

AirWis 2017 H1B:
Air Wisconsin, Jobs & Salary for Foreign Workers | myvisajobs.com

Piedmont H1B:
Piedmont Airlines, Inc, Jobs & Salary for Foreign Workers | myvisajobs.com

The most is Skywest, 77 H1B applications, all of them approved:
Skywest Airlines, Jobs & Salary for Foreign Workers | myvisajobs.com

rickair7777

Well at least they can't pay them any less than Americans.

zondaracer

The SkyWest ones are listed on there as H1Bs, but I understand those are mostly E3 visas. I could be incorrect though but that’s what I’ve been told.

bamike

Although this is technically true, it's my experience that they more than make up for it in the servitude of the H1B employee. When I worked in a major consulting firm, we had lots of people who were doing OPT (on the job training after completing a US degree for foreigners who study in the US) for about 1 year while hoping for an H1B approval.

The process for students in the US on a F1 (Student Visa) is that they finish the degree, then transition from F1 to OPT status, and then get sponsored by the employer to H1B status. The catch is that if their H1B was not approved, they either had to go back for more higher education, or leave the country (as they promised they would when they applied for a non-immigrant F1 visa to come here and study in the first place!)

Anyways, I found these "employees" were more like indentured servants. They worked routinely past midnight, never complained, and put up with conditions that a US job seeker would not put up with at that low pay level. They were mostly Asians, primarily Chinese, Korean, and Indian. I remember one day I came into the office and found one of them had worked all night doing tax returns and slept in the maternity room. The employer is their God and they will do anything for him.

I am surprised ALPA is not taking a harder line against H1B visas for pilots. Maybe because their numbers are very small for now.

rickair7777

Yes the H1B CFI's back in the day were indentured servants for sure. But CBA's and work rules prevent individuals from being singled out, so once the realize that, they don't HAVE to be any more subservient than any other airline pilot.