I am not thrilled about this. Not even a little bit.

That's all correct.

But you also need to be able to enter the three countries SKW flies to, so you need some combination of passport, visas, waivers, etc to do that. They can't not hire you because you don't have a us passport, but if say Canada requires a visa for your nationality but they won't grant one, then SKW would not have to employ you.

Does anyone know of a good way to figure out when seasonal routes start between cities besides going onto delta, united, or the American websites and manually putting in dates until the non stop routes show up? I'm sure there is an easier way and it's right in front of me but I'm just not seeing it. Thanks

If you hold a Visa to enter the US, all of these countries will admit you as long as there is evidence that you are returning to the US. This evidence is pretty much assumed as a flight crew member. This applies no matter the country of origin. It is a low hurdle.

Why do you care as long as it is legal immigration? It is my understanding is SKW is not putting up the money for immigration attorneys.

My concern is if we start seeing a flood of Chinese or Indian pilots in the right seat. I haven't seen that. Only a few Aussies.

Nevermind.

I don't like it at all. America is still a country and I won't apologize for wanting my countrymen in these job opportunities. The more scarce the pilot resource the better the wages are driven for me and Americans to fill these jobs. These visa fellows are counter productive to that.
While I've talked admittedly to few, none were interested in actually becoming an American.
I am very pro-immigration but this is nothing more than a corporate workaround to not paying people the market rate. Everyone loves capitalism as long as the market is in their favor.

Finally my ears can't understand half of what they mumble into a "qflymic". Most of the people I've knocked heads with have accents. I think I **** them off by saying "what?" continuously.

Thanks for the info.

We should be worried for the entire industry right now and how it will change in the next 3 years, and not worried about a few Aussies. SWA just announced they are hiring 800 pilots yet this year. United, Delta and American will soon be following suit. There just aren't that many US pilots out there --- the numbers in training is abysmal.

When small cities start losing their air service due to the lack of pilots, Congress will raise retirement ages, small and weak regionals will be bought by the majors to acquire pilots, or a flood of immigrant pilots will be let in. None of this is particularly appealing for any SKW FO. It will either keep us in the right seat for a few more years, give priority to other regional pilots in advancing to the majors, or suppress our income.

SKW is hiring a few (<10%) foreign pilots with a US visa. (The current SKW requirement is a passport with a work visa.) Envoy is hiring Army and Marine rotorheads with 750 hours and sending them to San Marcos for fixed wing training. If you see SKW and a Envoy doing that, they are taking extraordinary steps to keep a pilot supply. They are concerned and significant changes to both the industry and pilots are coming, and change probably not to our liking. If you think the Trump administration will stop pilot immigration to raise our wages, you are kidding yourself. I believe the Trump administration will do the opposite and all those Indian and Chinese pilots you see if flight schools these days will be shortly flying regional routes in the US.

Anyone have any luck getting Logbook Pro on their Surface? I see that we can only add software from the Microsoft Store but not sure if there are any exceptions for logbook programs.