Australian pilots can work for US regionals.

[Jerry Springer]

Originally Posted by Jerry Springer

Everyone works to progress up their chosen career ladder as best they can given the employment climate at the time.
I wish the E-3 visa with plentiful jobs was around 20 odd years ago when I was getting started. Back then with 1,500 hours I couldn’t even get into a piston-twin in Australia, now with 1,500 hours Aussies can go right into a Jet in the USA - so why wouldn’t they? The turn-around in opportunities is amazing and anyone would be mad not to capitalize on them. Criticizing people for doing so is idiotic. We don’t create the supply-and-demand employment metric, we can only position ourselves to gain from the climate at the time.

Not so many years ago, people in ‘my generation’ were criticized for buying type-ratings to boost their way up the ladder - so again, people in every generation seek to ‘cut-corners’ if they see it being to their advantage. That is a human thing, not a generational thing.
People who got started in the industry 20 years or so ago (like me) sometimes sound bitter towards the younger generation of pilots who do have far better opportunities than we had. But that’s life, suck it up! Just be thankful things are great now for all of us, and be happy for anyone who has good opportunities today.

A few months ago I saying how the positive job supply was an amazing turn around from the lack opportunities in the past, and so be happy for anyone capitalizing on this. I wrote that in response to someone saying Aussies on E-3 visas were cutting corners and should stay at home.

Now we have had another amazing turn around, and we’ve returned to the days of struggling for work.
The long term reality of aviation is a string of great years followed by a string of bad years.
For anyone who has not experienced a string of bad years, this downturn has probably come as something of a shock.

Anyone who started in aviation within the last 5 years (perhaps a little longer) had a much easier time finding work than pervious generations, and they enjoyed a lightening fast career progression compared to their predecessors. That is terrific, however I think it has left some vulnerable to the perception that their skills were going to be in demand all around the world throughout their career, and they imagined employers would be begging them to come to work until their dyeing day.
And so now it comes as a bit of shock for them to suddenly discover this industry can spit you out pretty fast, and we’re not the golden boys and girls that we may have imagined ourselves to be.

There is a lot of luck and timing in an aviation career and that is beyond our control.
What I wrote before referring to the good times, still applies now to the bad times, “We don’t create the supply-and-demand employment metric, we can only position ourselves to gain from the climate at the time.”

I won’t be surprised if we soon see people paying for type-rating, and basally working for nothing to get hours. These are the folk you’ll soon be competing against for work, and as much as they will be ridiculed by their peers, depending on your level of experience, you may have to join them or take a job outside aviation for a while.

Aviation will boom again in years to come, and then go bust again. Make hay while the sun shines, but don’t get yourself into a financial position of being dependent on a stable salary at any time during your career. Good luck!