Originally Posted by
am111
This is just plain wrong. I'm a newly qualified European pilot, married to an American so have the right to work in both the EU & US, so I've looked into this.
The main difference is that newly qualified cadets such as myself, rightly or wrongly, can get into the right hand seat of a commercial air liner with <200 hours. In the US (not sure on Canada) you have to do 1000 odd hours of instructing/crop dusting/parachute drops/banner towing for a hell of a lot less than a Ryanair FO. Ryanair and easyJet have or are ending the temporary/zero hour contracts, they're recognising unions and social security is built into our taxes. Now, I'm not saying their T&Cs are as good as the legacies, but I know where I would much rather do my first 1500 hours. And its my understanding from there you can get into any of the European majors off the street. In the US you have to go through a regional and have a university degree before the Majors will even look at you.
so it seems like ryr is finely being forced to improve, great! Also, yes you need a 4 year degree, but if you do an aviation degree you can get your flight training including ATP theory done during those 4 years, that takes a lot of people more than 2 years in the EU, yes you will not go directly into a legacy, but regional pays better than Ryanair. Maybe things are changing with the Lagacy carriers in the EU, but I personally don’t know any who got hired there unless they were young and did the “approved” school, in the USA people get hired by the mayors and nobody cares what flight school you did. I don’t agree with the requirement for 1500 hours in the USA, flew with enough 200 hr guys to know that won’t make a difference. Having said that, it takes most people a year or so to get enough time after their college (1500 hrs is only for non college flight training), you make $15.000 or go to a LLC in the EU, pay €30.000 for a type rating and get a half year summer contract, (or a 5 year bond, so if you get that job offer, you’re still paying).