Randy_g,
I feel I need to clarify a few things with regard to your comments. You should know that Canada is first and foremost "my country". I am a Canadian, I am not British and I do not hold a British Passport. I am able to live here in Britain because my wife and children are British. I am by no means trying to say "my country is better than yours" or anything of the sort. All I am saying is that if you are a pilot, by and large, Britain is by far a better place to be, in terms of job availability and quality of work as well as renumeration for that work. We can argue until the cows come home about how far the pound goes vs the dollar as you can see we have been doing, but make no mistake - pilots in Britain are treated with much more respect than those in Canada.
If you choose to do a little research during your short visit here you will find that in fact BA is not the highest paid carrier in the UK at the moment and many of the low cost carriers actually pay more. I believe Ryanair is actually the highest with an average pilot salary of something like £100K including share options. And for your information Easyjet have just advertised to PAY type-rated captains £30K just to join and thereafter £66K basic to start. I have never ever heard of a "golden hello" in Canadian aviation.
You said:
Just be careful putting someone elses country down when you don't have the information. Going only by the media, or a short vacation can really skew ones perceptions.
--
Again I repeat, I am Canadian and I am by no means putting someone elses country down, and I most certainly do have the "information" to comment on the subject thank you very much. I might say the same back to you though with your comments re petrol (that took place over a few weeks in September and is now a distant memory) I am not too sure you are up to date with the current information. And I have been to plenty of football matches without receiving a pole in the face or a brick in the head. And besides, I have always agreed that the UK is pretty bad when it comes to the price of motoring. You are correct about the meat here, and indeed many people are vegetarian. Pretty good for the health actually. I do not understand why the UK always has these meat problems but they do and it is pretty annoying. Might I add that Europe (including the UK) has a ban on importation of Canadian beef due to the hormone treatment that it receives. Apparently not everyone thinks that it is such a good thing to do with cattle. So maybe Canada's beef isn't so good!?! I don't know, I am not a scientist. I just fly airplanes.
The reason why there are so many UK pilots in your country looking for jobs is probably because they cannot get jobs here. Just because airlines are getting really desperate to find pilotsdoes not mean they will hire just anyone. They are looking primarily for qualified pilots and failing that they are looking for low timers that they feelhave the ability to learn so it won't cost them too much money. Just because you have a licence does not mean that an airline will want to hire you. No matter how good the market is, there will always always always be some that cannot get jobs for whatever reason.
And finally, I noticed you mentioned the loss of licence situation. Here in the UK it is pretty normal for your company to provide loss of licence insurance (usually 3 to 3.5 times your annual salary) for you as well as PHI to pay 75% of your wages while you are on long term sick. That is what I have; don't you? If I lose my licence I will be a wealthy man (and probably return to Canada).
Maybe you should stay a little longer during your stop here - times are pretty good for pilots.