I have a lady fiend who is a UPS 727 captain based in CGN, she is American-born, and has lived near Nantes (44-France) since over 15 years ago, having bought a house near the beach there. She pays France's income tax and has a permanent resident visa, etc...
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I realize the frustration of EU pilots seeing potential jobs with US air carriers, flying within EU, being operated by US crews. Yet not all is "rosy" for US crews paid in US dollars in Europe nowadays, with the exchange rate to Euro currency. This makes US pilots rather underpaid in comparison with EU pilot salaries operating with EU airlines.
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As to being based in Europe for American pilots, being "high seniority", it is not necessarily so. I know many Americans who absolutely hate European life and different living standards, being forced to often speak a local language, and not finding a hamburger on the menu of most restaurants. I am a native of Belgium, became American citizen to work for PanAm until their bankruptcy to eventually ending my pilot career in Argentina. I would not trade my Buenos Aires for a job in Europe or USA, despite the dire economic problems Argentina suffered in 2002. For me, buying a cup of coffee (no refills) in Madrid or Rome with my Argentina Pesos forces me to take a bank loan.
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After PanAm "bust" in 1991, a few pilots went to Japan, to fly for JAL, and had to suffer 8 months of "retraining" to be JAL 747 captains, when they had 5,000 hours of command time on the same 747s with PanAm. I rather take a pistol and shoot myself, to be subject to Japanese brain washing, and having to live in a 3x2 meters room in a Tokyo hotel, although I like sushi...
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Friends, we are all pilots, fly the same planes in the same skies. I am rather international myself, would you say...? Maybe the problem is with flight schools that advertise the airline pilot careers (for their own benefit) with the high salaries (that never materialize), and the "many jobs" that do not exist... and the national governments who put barriers with visas, citizenship and licencing requirements.
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I personally do not tag people by their citizenship. There are nice people in any parts of the world, and there are also idiots in all countries, I am sorry to say. And many of these idiots have management positions with airlines.
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Happy contrails