From the best market to the worst.
With Jobs Scarce, U.S. Pilots
>Sign On At Foreign Airlines
>
>
>By Susan Carey and Bruce Stanley
>
>From The Wall Street Journal Online
>
>Nearly two years ago, at age 51, Brian Murray took early retirement
>from US Airways. The pilot was outraged by the airline's termination
>of his pension plan and worried about his future with a carrier
>sliding toward bankruptcy court for the second time.
>
>But Capt. Murray's flying career was far from over. Today he lives
>in Dubai and flies wide-body Airbus A330s for fast-growing Emirates
>Airlines, winging to exotic destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia.
>He's home more than he ever was at US Airways, and his total
>compensation package -- including health care, housing allowance,
>retirement plan and vacation -- is superior. He says his wife and
>children enjoy living in the United Arab Emirates, and "from a
>professional standpoint, it couldn't be better."
>
>In a new twist on global outsourcing, a flock of U.S. pilots is
>fleeing the depressed North American airline industry to work in far
>reaches of the world where aviation is booming. After the 2001
>terrorist attacks stifled air travel and sent the U.S. industry into
>its deepest decline ever, more than 10,000 U.S. pilots were laid
>off, and many more took early retirement. Despite subsequent hiring
>by a few healthy carriers, including Southwest Airlines, thousands
>haven't been able to find new flying jobs at their old pay grades.
>
>At the same time, the industry is expanding rapidly in China, India,
>Southeast Asia and the Middle East. As these regions have grown more
>affluent and loosened aviation restrictions, travel demand has
>soared. New airlines have started up, existing carriers are adding
>routes, and hundreds of new jets are on order.
>
>So, like British and Australian pilots who long have plied their
>trade wherever they find work, more Yanks are taking their skills
>offshore. They are doing so despite trepidations about moving
>families, flying on short-term contracts, and sometimes giving up
>union rights to be called back to work by U.S. carriers according to
>seniority.
>
>U.S. pilots are working as far afield as Bolivia, China, Qatar and
>Vietnam. Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore
>Airlines are hiring more Americans, as are carriers in Taiwan and
>South Korea, and increasingly, in India.
>
>The diaspora is one symptom of a growing global shortage of
>well-trained commercial pilots. Aerospace giant Boeing Co. estimates
>the global jet fleet will grow to more than 35,000 airplanes in
>2024, from fewer than 17,000 in 2004. Boeing pegs demand for new
>pilots at nearly 18,000 a year through 2024. China alone will need
>more than 35,000 new pilots over 20 years, and the rest of Asia will
>need 56,500, the company estimates. Many countries are currently
>unable to train enough pilots at home.
>
>The result: a global bazaar where experienced pilots go to the
>highest bidder. Norwegians and Venezuelans are flying in China,
>Egyptians and Russians in India, Jamaicans and Iranians for a
>Japanese carrier. Four out of five pilots at Qatar Airways are
>foreign. More than 70 Philippine Airlines pilots have quit since
>2003 for better-paying jobs elsewhere. Etihad Airways, a new airline
>based in Abu Dhabi, says its No. 1 source of pilots is Malaysia.
>India's fleet of startup carriers was so plagued by pilot poaching
>that the government last year began requiring pilots to serve at
>least six months at one carrier before moving on.
>
>G.R. Gopinath, managing director for Air Deccan, a two-year-old
>budget airline in India, says he has been recruiting a dozen pilots
>a month from overseas. "If Indian software engineers can work in the
>U.S., their pilots can come and work here," he says. "It's reverse
>body-shopping." Pilot job fairs in the U.S. have begun attracting
>recruiters for Chinese and Indian startups, according to Kit Darby,
>president of Air Inc., a placement firm.
>
>The hiring frenzy has led to some safety concerns. English is the
>industry's world-wide language. Putting two pilots with different
>native languages in the same cockpit, where they might have to
>interact with an air-traffic controller whose native tongue is
>different still, can lead to problems, especially in emergencies,
>contends Dennis Dolan, a retired Delta Air Lines captain and
>president of the U.K.-based International Federation of Air Line
>Pilots' Associations, which represents pilot unions and associations
>in 95 countries.
>
>The International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the
>United Nations, intends in 2008 to begin English-proficiency testing
>of pilots and air-traffic controllers who handle international
>flights. India proposed that measure after a 1996 accident in which
>the flight crew of a Kazakh Airways jet misunderstood an Indian
>controller's instructions, leading to a midair collision with a
>Saudi Arabian Airlines plane near New Delhi. India also cited the
>1995 crash of an American Airlines jet near Cali, Colombia, in which
>miscommunication between a Colombian controller and a U.S. crew was
>a contributing factor.
>
>Jim Burin, director of technical programs for the Alexandria,
>Va.-based Flight Safety Foundation, an international nonprofit
>group, points to another safety concern. "In some cultures, it's not
>the place of the second-in-command to question the
>first-in-command," he says. That could interfere with the co-pilot's
>role as a check on the captain, who commands the flight.
>
>One pilot who moved from a U.S. airline to a national carrier in
>Southeast Asia says that informational updates on safety at his new
>employer arrive late or not at all, and that little attention is
>paid to punctuality or how many hours pilots work. "Training for the
>most part is far from the quality I was used to in the U.S.," says
>the 55-year-old captain, who asked not to be identified for fear of
>angering his employer. He adds that he likes the lifestyle and finds
>the job "relatively easy."
>
>Capt. Murray, who flies out of Dubai, says safety standards are high
>at Emirates, and its 1,350 pilots from 70 nations speak fluent
>English. He says pilots are "treated with respect in this part of
>the world. We're driven to work. We're put in four- and five-star
>hotels, on the concierge floors. Captains are treated as vice
>presidents of the organization."
>
>Some out-of-work U.S. pilots balk at going overseas for family
>reasons. Some hope to be recalled by U.S. carriers and don't want to
>give up their seniority rights. Duane Woerth, president of the Air
>Line Pilots Association, a U.S. union, says foreign carriers are
>interested in senior pilots, not junior ones. He worries about the
>"brain drain" and whether foreign carriers are using U.S. pilots
>only temporarily until they can staff up with their own citizens.
>But "our guys are warming up to it," he says. "This one looks like a
>permanent structural shift."
>
>Andrew Baedke, who was furloughed by Northwest Airlines after Sept.
>11, has worked for the past three years as a Honolulu-based 747
>first officer, or co-pilot, for Jalways, a subsidiary of Japan
>Airlines. "A lot of my [laid-off] friends are sitting at home or
>working for Home Depot," says Mr. Baedke, who is 36 years old. "I'm
>glad to have this job. It's extremely stable."
>
>One reason for the pilot shortage is that developing nations aren't
>training enough of them at home. There are not enough flight schools
>in the world to meet demand, says Brent Mills, the chief executive
>officer of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, a flight
>academy in Tulsa, Okla., that plans to open schools in India with a
>local partner in the next year. It takes many years for a college
>graduate to accumulate sufficient flight training and commercial
>flying hours to climb the professional ladder from novice to first
>officer to captain.
>
>Some nations, such as Japan and Ethiopia, have raised the mandatory
>retirement age for commercial pilots to alleviate the shortage.
>ICAO, the U.N. agency, will recommend later this year that the age
>be raised to 65 from 60, although member nations will not be
>required to do so.
>
>The Chinese government runs a school in Sichuan province that
>graduated 307 novice pilots last year. China Southern Airlines, the
>nation's largest carrier by fleet size, has its own school in
>Australia. In 2004, four Chinese investors opened Beijing PanAm
>International Aviation Academy, which 240 students now attend.
>
>Nevertheless, Gao Hongfeng, deputy director of the Civil Aviation
>Administration of China, says there are almost enough native pilots
>to staff the new airplanes China has on order, but it will be
>difficult for the nation to train enough "mature captains" quickly.
>
>Chinese airlines are filling in with expatriates. Tim Shattock,
>chief executive of Parc Aviation Ltd., a Dublin firm that leases
>pilots to airlines, says "our intelligence says there are 120 to 150
>foreign pilots in mainland China."
>
>India counts more. Deregulation has spawned startup airlines, an
>influx of international flights, and 20% annual passenger growth.
>India expects to need 2,500 new pilots by 2010. At Jet Airways, the
>nation's largest private carrier, 111 of its 685 pilots are foreign.
>Air Deccan has 75 foreigners among its 250 pilots, and is setting up
>its own flight school in Bangalore.
>
>Compensation for the foreign gigs varies widely. But it is often
>better than what U.S. pilots can earn at home, where pay levels and
>benefits have been reduced by bankruptcy filings and restructurings.
>Richard Paul, an 18-year US Airways veteran who was bumped from
>captain to first officer during one round of layoffs, says he plans
>to quit soon and report for training to fly cargo at a large Asian
>carrier he declines to identify. The 46-year-old pilot says he will
>start as a first officer, but "in four or five years, I'll probably
>be a captain on a 747 and make twice as much" as the $72,000 a year
>he currently earns.
>
>India's Air Deccan is offering $8,000 to $15,000 a month to foreign
>captains, according to Mr. Gopinath, the managing director. A
>captain in the U.S. on Northwest's smallest jet earns about $9,000 a
>month, while a captain on United Airlines's largest plane earns
>about $15,000, according to a recent survey by Air Inc.
>
>American Craig Harnden, formerly a pilot for now-defunct Eastern
>Airlines, has worked overseas since 1990 for Saudi Arabian Airlines,
>Thai Airways International and now Singapore Airlines. "If I had
>known what I know now, I would probably have left Eastern and gone
>overseas a lot earlier," says the 59-year-old Miami native, who
>lives in Singapore. "But we didn't leave the airlines because of the
>seniority system."
>
>William Goodwin left the U.S. in 1994 after working for two airlines
>that went under and a third that was acquired. He says he nearly
>doubled his pay by moving to Taiwan to captain 767s for Taipei-based
>EVA Air. "It was the smartest thing I've ever done," he says. He
>jumped to Korean Air in 2000, where as a captain of 747s he earns
>$152,000 a year after Korean taxes. The 54-year-old pilot says he
>hopes to stay until he retires at 60.
>
>Mr. Baedke, the former Northwest pilot who now flies out of Honolulu
>for Jalways under a crew-leasing contract, says he's trying to
>spread the word to other American pilots. Many of his pilot friends,
>he says, were laid off after 9/11 and have not yet been called back.
>
>As a first officer, Mr. Baedke earns $100 an hour, or $105,000 last
>year. He expects to begin training next month to become a captain, a
>process he says could take 2.5 years. If he succeeds, his pay will
>climb to $150 an hour for the first 50 hours flown each month, and
>$180 an hour for anything exceeding that.
>
>He no longer gives much thought to returning to Northwest. "Even if
>I had a chance to go back, I think I'd be at [a regional subsidiary]
>as a first officer, earning $23 an hour," he says. "There's no
>point."