Bit of a decision time, advice please

[laakdown]

Hi i was hoping to get a bit of advice from some slightly better informed people on here. Basically my situation is I got my PPL last December and have recently begun the Oxford Distance Learning course with a view to getting all of my ATPL exams finished around May next year with a view to taking the modular route and getting my CPL/ME/IR by the end of next year. After that I would apply for any low hour pilot job anywhere and could pay for a type rating if it would help. I know this has porbably been asked lots of times but is this way too early to finish in relation to the job market?

Id love to work in Asia, initially for someone like VivaMacau, but i find most of the time when people are talking about the economy on PPrune, the job market in Europe is what is mostly discusssed, is it any easier to get a job in places like Asia?

I feel my situation is slightly different to others in that I have quite a well paid job on the side and have saved around 40K to pay for everything i need to next year and so once ive got my licenses i will not have debts to pay and be under pressure to get a job right away. my only worry is that if i finish way too early my licenses will eventually become invalid making it even harder to get a job.
My other issue is that i am back living with my parents whilst doing my ATPLs and they think its best for me to finish asap and worry about a job when im in a position to get one whilst i am happy to study at my leisure and work part time to make some more money as i go along.
Part of me sees the benefit of just going for it and work my ass off to finish asap and another part of me thinks its a mistake and i should explain to my parents more about how sh*t the economy is and make more money working from home.
What do you think? thanks for any advice and sorry for long winded post

[G SXTY]

In this industry, timing is everything. You're asking the ten million dollar question - "when should I aim to qualify?" - and it's impossible to give anything more than an educated guess.

The job market is awful, and there are no signs of improvement anytime soon. On the contrary, BA are looking for volunteers to take redundancy or unpaid leave, and are unlikely to be recruiting for the foreseeable future. That matters, not because you're likely to get a job with them at 200 hours, but because when they recruit, the effect is felt all the way down the pilot food chain - people move on, turboprop pilots move onto jets, flying instructors move onto turboprops, etc etc. Right now, the entire process is at a standstill. To make matters worse, there are still experienced commercial pilots out of work and looking for jobs.

To try and answer you question, this industry tends to work on a 7-10 year cycle. If you look at previous downturns, the industry has been well into recovery before low hours, newly qualified pilots were recruited in significant numbers. Right now, we are a long way from that - it would take a brave man to claim that the recession has even bottomed out, let alone that we're on the road to recovery.

Remember that once you have the ATPLs passed, you have three years to get the IR. And that the CPL/ME & IR can easily be done in 3-4 months. If I was in your shoes, I'd be taking my time with the ATPLs in order to stretch out that three year period as far as possible, then waiting for the likes of BA to start recruiting again before I even thought about getting a CPL & IR.

[Superpilot]

Regarding the Far East, Middle East thing....

If you take 3 or 4 popular low cost airlines from the Far East you will see that they all stipulate a minimum of around 1,500 hours of multi-crew twin jet time. Right now and for a few more years, these airlines will have no shortage of applicants with the above experience.

Sure, from time to time, airlines like to balance the books by hiring low hours graduates but if you analyse the trend you will see that these carriers are now being more and more bound by the law of their lands to hire graduates from their own nation first. In fact a lot of Far Eastern and Middle Eastern airlines run their own shemes for ab initios. These airlines have to now prove that they are genuinely struggling to find suitable pilots before they are allowed to hire from abroad.

Basically, much of the old world is coming of age. A Brit now stands as much chance of landing his/her first job in the Far East as a Malaysian does of finding one in Europe.

My advice to Brits would be stick to Europe and learn a couple more languages. 4/5 European airlines require their pilots to speak their national language. Brits are at a severe disadvantage.