Face it, being a commercial pilot is a international business that SHOULD not have any boundries or barriers based on nationality. Experience and fit for the job/qualifications is what SHOULD count. Ready, aim, ....
Very true! But it is understandable if the country wants to create qualified field force in different business categories for its own citizens. I personally can't see anything wrong with that IF, and only if, the local can satisfy the job requirements and create the competitive edge over the foreigner. It happens in many places of the modern world.
The fact is that even without Gulf Air attracting expat pilots, GAA is training far more cadets than the local market can possibly absorb adopting the same business model as the big FTO's in Europe. Hence the cooperation with CAE/Oxford and Air Arabia.
Now here lies the problem! The GAA product does not satisfy the market demands! And let me tell you this.. The market can easily absorb those cadets but not in the very generic meaning of the word. GF, for instance, has been always short of pilots and for many years while there are plenty of poor and helpless cadets knocking the doors all the time! Can you see the gap here? GF, and likewise many airlines in the region, are ideally looking for type rated and experienced pilots who can jump in straight into the cockpit and generate money ASAP. The available cadets are nowhere near that profile and will exhaust the almighty budget and the limited training capacity/time until they are marginally ready to go. So if the business model of an FTO like GAA wanted to fill this gap, they should have at least topped up the cadets' frozen ATPL with the sought type rating and probably some good couple of hundreds of hours on type in order to qualify them to only touch the market demands and get the hiring managers excited. How brilliant would that be for an airline, a cadet and a respected FTO?! Unfortunately, they have all the resources and the infra-structure, but don't have enough of the "skull contents"!
I only can hear back my echoes!
