Hi there,
May I ask you why you want to switch from offshore to FW ? With little to no FW experience you’ll have to start from zero with an operator in the bush or like Pacific Coastal, KD Air, CMA, Georgian, etc for peanuts. The majors ( AC, WJ, SUNWING..) don’t take direct entries unless you are 20 years old, ready to spend$100-150K in their pipeline schools, which are part of a 4 years undergraduate degree, and prepared to make 25-40K/year for 5 to 10 years as an FO on a turboprop. The situation is a bit different in the US, as the demand for pilots is much higher and the regionals pay better. They usually have a direct and relative fast path to the majors. Financially, you are probably better off to stay where you are, unless money is not a factor and you are looking for an adventure !!!
Rubbish, save for the third sentence and the bit about FO earning potential which has an element of truth.
Airlines in Canada do not have "pipeline" schools like Europe. Yes, we hire from the universities, but we also hire from flight colleges and flight schools. There are a lot of applicants with and without degrees or certificates and many who were hired with licenses only. Air Canada has required a degree of some sort in the past, but this was a rationing device meant to take the sometimes 8,000 applicants a month down to a manageable level. With the number of retirements coming, there is news that these requirements have either already been removed or will shortly be removed to accommodate hiring needs. WestJet has never required any additional education above that required to obtain a CPL or ATPL, nor has any other airline in Canada.
There are conversion processes that Transport Canada has in place for conversion from rotary-wing to fixed-wing licenses. Have a look at
CAR 421.30(7) to see how TC credits pilots with a CPL-H for the knowledge and experience requirements for the CPL-A. A rough estimate looks like you'd likely be in for 30 to 50 hours to finish off the cross-country and solo requirements if you've been flying for 10 years. Not cheap, about $7,000 to $9,000 or so, but certainly not $100,000 to $150,000. Then, and depending on the breakdown of your experience, an airline may hire you as soon as you convert your licenses or they may ask you to complete more fixed-wing hours; that all depends on the economy and the airline. However, a certain regional airline in Canada already hires 250-hour pilots and the other two are being forced to do so as well. Therefore, a pilot with 10-years experience on an aircraft where the wings don't stay put would likely not be given the cold shoulder where they could demonstrate they held the CPL-A or ATPL-A.
As far as starting wages, that range shown in the above post is not too far off; However, in this economy, no one is spending 5 to 10 years in the right seat of a turboprop. I do caution people to not expect quick upgrades as the next recession is always right around the corner and one could find themselves in the wrong seat at the wrong time, but that is not the current reality. At my outfit, we've instituted an upgrade matrix as otherwise, upgrades would be occurring at an unacceptably low level of experience. But the average upgrade in our house is around 2 years. Additionally, there are a lot of smaller, charter companies that have started increasing their FO and Captain wages of late to retain staff. In fact, there is one operator in Manitoba who pays their King Air Captains more than the regionals pay theirs.
This is definitely a pilots market right now, so if you're going to make the jump, do it sooner rather than later.