The local labor laws prevent direct employment of foreign professionals, hence Agency… I believe that the companies like KAL, ANA, Asiana would like to bypass the same but… By the way the salary is not as high as the ones (used to be) in US or somewhere else, but unfortunately thanks to deregulation and
some other forces the others had come down… Annual salary of US$ 150,000 is not that low any more… still better than the food stamps with Uncle Sam… In this industry if one (Captain or Senior F/O) wants to change the company, airline, for better pay he/she has to start from the junior F/O level… How come that we protect the seniority and the doctors, professors, managers, engineers and like don’t? Why the Captain from any american airline with (still) 6 digit salary on heavy equipment has to start after the years of services in the same airspace, same type, and same license at the junior F/O pay scale? We are doing it to ourselves…
