How many Canadian to JAA licensed pilots have found employment?

[Hollywood316]

Hello Ppruners!

Looking through the forums ive seen many threads from Canadians or Europeans who have done there training over in Canada and have converted or are looking to convert there license to JAA. What I have been unable to find is any threads of people who have converted and found employment in Europe.

Could people who have converted reply with there experiences in job hunting whether successful or not?

The more replies the better! Thankyou!

[Canada Goose]

Hollywood316,

Working at it ! Much will depend upon your level of experience and whether you're type rated on useful a/c or not. If you are then it should be a swift transition into a job. Otherwise, you'll be just like the rest of the low hour brigade. That said, converting a CPL and multi-IFR should be cheaper than doing the lot from scratch in the uK !

Cheers,
CG.

[Lembrado]

316,

I did exactly that. Although it took five years from zero hours to airline job.

Briefly; Canadian PPL/CPL/MultiIR Feb-Aug 2000. Converted to UK JAA fATPL Jan 2001-Jan 2002. RHS B757 Apr 2005 for UK charter airline based LGW. In between worked as an instructor for 2 years, operations for 6 months, Aerad for 6 months, baggage handler for 3 weeks and a waiter.

I suspect that I was a little unlucky completing the UK portion of my training just after Sep 11. Hence the whole journey took a while, but looking back I wouldn't change a thing.

One thing I have learned is that everybody does it slightly differently.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. I also think its important to savour every little bit.


L.

[A320rider]

I know lot of pilots, FI in the USA, canada, or even austrialia.
they have converted to find themselves out of job!

too old, too many hours(1000-2000h), no good!!!
the best is to not to fly after the Commercial license and keep the money (if left)in case an airline call you... ( you have to pay your own type rating).

[Dan761]

I started training in Canada early 2001, and did the JAA conversion in 2004. I am just starting the F50 type rating. Since 2004 i worked as a dispatcher and Flight Instructor, but it was the firing off 100's of CV's technique that got me this job, although dispatching was very good for making contacts.

Dan.

[metro_435]

I was born in Canada to British parents and I converted in early 2004 after instructing and flying in the right seat of metroliners. 4 months to convert to a JAA ATPL and I found a job flying a large turboprop which led to an Embraer position. I start my A320 course in June.

If you are flying in Canada and plan to convert, it was a whole lot easier for me having multi-crew time. 500 MCC and you may just save some big bucks.

Good luck.

[blue_side_up]

Did my conversion from Cdn ATPL to UK ATPL. Completed 2002. Found work in 2003 flying heavies. Had 3000hrs when finished conversion, and many positive responses from operators in the UK. Had my sights set on one place in particular though, and lucky for me it worked out. Lack of jet experience is not a big problem. 3000hrs is considered pretty decent time when many of the jet operators will hire f/o's with 500hrs tt.
Know 4 others from Canada who did the same thing. We're all working for large international airlines flying widebodies, so I'd say it worked out pretty decently. I believe we all had between 2000-4000hrs when we finished our conversions. Keep in mind all of us also have UK (dual) citizenship, and would all rather be living in Canada, but the opportunities are simply better in Europe. You MUST have an EU passport to make the JAR license worthwhile though.