Originally Posted by plikee
TAP is recruiting yes, minimum 1000 TT. About the Portuguese, you have to write and talk fluently but you do not need to have any language proficiency in your licence.
Language discrimination on the topic of age discrimination. I don't know any good reason why one
shall (not should) have to speak certain language -beside English, which is required by law and basically everything in aviation is written in it. How knowing Portuguese significantly helps one to become a better flightdeck member is beyond me... There are so many airlines in the world (LCC and others) flying mixed-nationality crews without any significant problem - just as long they can all speak English, which they should (ICAO Language Proficiency requirements anyone?) - of course, companies from countries like Spain, France, Portugal, Italy & co. will always demand fluent knowledge of local language, which is probably due to fact that some pilots still haven't reached the operational knowledge of English language (despite having level 5 or 6 written in their licence). Of course, an EU citizen has the right to be employed in all members of EU - theoretically...
Regarding age discrimination I agree - there shouldn't be any difference whether one is 20 or 45 with CPL/ME/IR applying for a jet job. But in reality, the learning curve of a 45-year old will be significantly flatter than that of a 20-year old - we can all agree on that. The more flat the learning curve, the longer the training lasts, the greater costs for the company. I do know that life experience is a very valuable thing to have on the flightdeck, but if it was really that important, legacy carriers wouldn't have cadet programs taking 18+ guys ab-initio, but they would be hiring 40 or 50-year old first officers who have a heap of life experience.