Well H it’s a controversial one and the cause of much puzzled staring into the bottom of pint glasses amongst the wannabe population.
Standards of training are not even an issue any more. Many of the world’s highest paying and most prestigious airlines, who can pick and choose their pilots from all over the world (Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Singapore Airlines etc) employ a right old mix of pilots from all over the world, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, America and so on. You may encounter a few crusty old relics of the empire who still cling to the notion that the UK licence is somehow indefinably ‘better’, but thankfully they’re a fast vanishing breed now as well.
However, all the airlines I just mentioned come from countries where there is no local flight training industry to support. Here in the UK, it’s a little more complex
You see, the main reason flight training in Britain costs three times as much as it does in the rest of civilisation, is all the government snouts in the trough. We pay massive fuel duties, licencing fees, exam fees, airways charges etc etc etc and a healthy swipe of VAT on top of everything.
The bean counters in the government, noticed some years ago that the smart wannabe’s were leaving the country in droves to do their training somewhere a little more friendly to aviation. Recognizing the potential loss of their cash cow, they swiftly passed laws making it so expensive to convert a foreign licence to a UK one that it was no longer worthwhile to do so. That’s basically been their policy ever since.
Under massive pressure from the recreational flying public, the CAA have relented slightly in recent years over the issue of recognition of foreign PPLs, however they’ve more than made up for it by totally shafting the professional pilot wannabe – by savagely increasing the time and cost factor of converting a foreign CPL and, just recently, ceasing to recognize other countries’ instrument ratings altogether. Leading to the bizarre situation we have now, with massively experienced foreign licenced air transport pilots having to pay to sit all their ATPL writtens over again, re-do their CPL flight test in a single engine, and undergo 50-something hours of compulsory dual training before they can even be considered worthy to sit the instrument rating test. Meanwhile the airlines here have been so starved of suitably experienced crew that they’ve been forced to run sponsorship schemes, and hire 200 hour pilots straight into heavy jets. Yes, it’s a bizarre situation and no, you won’t find anything like it anywhere else in the world. It’s got plenty to do with job protection of bureaucrats and sod all to do with aviation safety or improving the lot of the cash strapped wannabe.
The situation is unlikely to change in the near future for the obvious reason that anyone who’s already jumped through the licencing hoops (in other words ‘everyone who’s already got an airline job’
, is quite understandably going to wish to enhance their own employment prospects, by keeping the licence as exclusive and unobtainable as possible.
So the short answer is that it’s still possible to save a small amount of money by going and doing your PPL and some of your hour building abroad, but when you get to the serious business of CPLs and instrument ratings then you’re unlikely to save much if anything. In fact doing a non-JAR instrument rating is just throwing money away now, if your long term plan is to work in the UK/Europe.
Well that’s my bit said anyway, sorry to be the bearer of negative opinions. Feel free to email me if you want some specific numbers relative to what it cost me and some of my mates to train down under, and / or convert to UK licences.