"I know a lot of US pilots flying for Cathay, Cargolux, British Airways and even Lufthansa (provided they can speak German). The reciprocity however works only one way and that is not right.
Luckily, more and more of the world's airlines are returning the same "courtesy" by not hiring US pilots. This kind of development is unfortunate, as it would have been far better for the US Airline industry being less protective."
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You mean it would be a lot better for foreigners. The vast vast majority of US pilots do not want to work for foreign carriers. I know I sure don't want to work in the middle east, nor in Europe. PPRUNE itself is filled with threads on how Europeans can get here to the US to work. Almost zero the other way around.
Not to start a war across the Atlantic, but the foreign companies that are hiring US pilots aren't doing it because they want to be "fair." Foreign companies like Cargolux and Cathay are doing it because they need pilots and can't get them locally. How many pilots a year does Luxembourg produce or separate from it's military?
Does Cathay primarily serve only Hong Kong residents? Or, is it's size completely out of proportion to Hong Kong's population?
Let's see . . . Cargolux. Luxembourg. Now that's a real big country. Most of that cargo originates and ends in LUX? Gee how many US pilots at Lufthansa? Hmmm..... how many GERMAN pilots at my tiny little airline? SEVERAL. Along with Russians, South Americans, Brits, etc.
I'll bet the number of US pilots working in Europe PALES in comparison to the number of European-origin pilots working in the US.
Maybe there's a reason that the Europeans are salivating at entering the US market and carping and the US is justifiably reticent. Like entering the US market will produce a pretty much one-sided windfall for the Europeans. It could easily also turn US aviation into something like seagoing cargo is . . . flags of convenience like parasites on a host. The Europeans have LOTS of protectionist schemes going themselves . . JAA licenses, etc. I like things just the way they are, thank you very much. We don't need give away any more US jobs to foreigners. There's been enough of that already. The Europeans should protect their markets and we should protect ours.