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Old 9th Nov 2011, 21:56
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Mostly Harmless
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Great White North
Posts: 210
Received 3 Likes on 2 Posts
I'm not much assistance on the emigration part but, you will find work here with those qualifications.... so here is the lay of the land, so to speak.

The two dominant airlines are Air Canada and Westjet. You will start as a first year first officer with either of them. It will be about 8 years to an upgrade in either airline... give or take a little. Air Canada doesn't have any 737's, but that is all that Westjet flies. These are your most stable job options...

After this you have the charter operations and smaller airlines. Places like Canadian North, Air North, Canjet, Flair Air, Sunwing, Transat, Morningstar, Kelowna Flightcraft, First Air... there are more, but that is a pretty good rundown. Some of these places may hire direct entry captains, others will not so you will have some homework to do. If I were you, I would just take it as a given that you will start out as a year one guy, bottom of the seniority list and plan your finances on that... if you get lucky, then it's a bonus.

Year one FO: This means about $40,000 a year for a starting wage... give or take a little from one airline to the next. It's not exactly rock stat wages here in the Great White North. So, if you are still interested and think you can live on that wage (cost of living varies widely across the country from "who the hell can afford to live there?" Vancouver to "this is reasonable" Maritimes) then the next thing I would do is look at each airline and where you may want to live.

I know this is all very vague but I hope it gives you a starting point to look at some of the operators and see what kind of flying you would do, what places you might wind up living in and how much that will cost you.

As for hiring... it has slowed down a fair bit from the heights of 07/08... and it's a gamble which direction it will go as it is all dependant upon the worlds economy in general.

I don't know what else to tell you... do some homework... perhaps come for a visit and see what you would be getting yourself into and good luck.
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