PJ,
The Chinese and Korean airlines have realized the importance of membership into the global airline alliances. The airlines in the alliances do their own audits of these airlines and have found a number of dangerous practices, one solution was to remove the airlines from the alliance or a massive injection of intellectual capital and skills from overseas.
It is true that the cadets being CHINESE citizens, but they cannot get enough captains locally so they are importing them. I have run into a number of expat pilots flying Chinese & Korean aircraft, they were not getting US$1200 a month. Whereever they come from more slots are available.
“So why is it then that my "aussie mates" at the company I work for can't find anything better than a turboprop position "down unda"”
Don’t know, Kendells advertised in the paper that it has reduced their pilot minimums to 250 multi command and are interviewing in every capital city 14 applicants every couple of months, QANTAS has been employing 5-10 pilots a week, all they are after is 500 hours command on aircraft (single or multi) and rejecting a heaps more, and Ansett is employing, besides a number of people actually like the lifestyle of flying turboprops in Australia.
I note with interest that the Canadian company that was contracted to supply CRJ drivers to Kendells could not deliver the number of drivers required for some time.
Australia only has about 120 high capacity jets, when operators start adding 20 or so aircraft to the Australian register in real terms you are talking about 15-25% increase in the number of jets in the country. Qantas has also leased a number of aircraft this year from BA, I had rumors that BA were going to supply some of the pilots for the 744’s as the QF training dept could not pump out enough pilots. Virgin are due to add another 10 737-800s into the fleet soon, they pay less than Ansett and Qantas, so where are they going to get the drivers from ?
“Yup, somewhere, someone is going to get a pilot job. Often 250 hour pilots from the Republic of YYYY getting on with YYYY Airlines. “
So you are saying the 14 additional A319/A321 aircraft that Air Canada ordered on Oct 10 are going to be crewed by 250 hr pilots ? And what is wrong with a 250 hr pilot if they are trained correctly ?
BJ