Originally Posted by
Gnadenburg
Could you imagine Australians being recruited for a Direct Entry Command at United, Delta and American?
E3’s get nothing of the sort. The Republican thank you to Australia, sees a small number of a Aussie pilots use this specialty visa to fly for tier 3 carriers that Americans aren’t statistically interested in staying with.
G'burg,
Nope, can't imagine Aussies being recruited for DEC at legacy US carriers because (1) We have strong unions with contracts precluding that, (2) FAA FARs require 1000 hours FAA Part 121 SIC time to fly as PIC in Part 121.
And US regionals are steppingstones and not designed to be career destinations. Of course most people just make touch and goes at regionals. But the E3 gave a number of young Aussies their first step up into airline flying with all their training paid for. This is a positive for those who got the opportunity allowing them to parlay this experience in other places (maybe even in the US in some cases).
It's difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the two directions at play in the E3 story. 100% of it is beyond the control of any of us Little People. But maybe there's a small positive for a few young Aussies ?