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Old 4th September 2014 | 19:07
  #8 (permalink)  
cyrilroy21
 
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 1,605
Likes: 3
From: Cochin VOCI , India
@Arpan_G

I am guessing nobody has told you that your pilot license is not an automatic permission for the rights to work in that country

If things were that easy for an Indian Citizen to just randomly work in the U.S after graduating from flight school then the number of unemployed pilots in India would have been much less than it is now

A country is not going to let a foreigner to come and work there unless they have a shortage in that profession among its locals
Eg : Doctors , Engineers going to the U.S
Experienced Foreign Captains flying with the airlines in India

There is no shortage of pilots in the U.S .

To put that that into perspective the DGCA CPL license issued since the beginning of Indian Aviation is running at around 13,200 right now i.e approximately 13,200 CPL's have been issued since the 1st license went to JRD TATA in 1930's
As you can imagine the number of active pilots + unemployed is less than 10,000

The U.S Majors and low cost carriers combined employ about 60,000 pilots . And i havent included the thousands that fly at the regional level or in non scheduled ops or air cargo

As you can see there is no reason for the U.S Govt to grant a working visa to a foreigner to come and fly there

Hence the all the employers in the U.S will require you to already hold permanent residency ( aka green card ) or hold U.S Citizenship in order to work there

You are going to find similar requirements in countries with a well developed Aviation industry .
So airlines in Europe like BA , lufthansa , KLM , Airfrance etc require you to have permanent residency in Europe or hold an EU citizenship ( in addition to local language requirements )

The airlines in the Middle East like EK , QR , Etihad etc are the few that accept all nationalities due to lack of applicants from its local citizens .
But they usually require an ATPL and 2500 hours on Jet in order to apply

You can take a look at the careers section of various major airlines around the globe and you will realise its not that easy for a pilot to jump wherever you feel like


Here is my advice

Got and get a regular college degree ( non aviation ) so that you will have something to fall back upon should the aviation career not work out or should you become permanently unfit
While studying in college you can apply and obtain DGCA Computer number , study and pass the DGCA CPL exams and RT exam by the WPC

Once you graduate look at the market once again and then decide if its worth it
A CPL will take at the most 1-2 years of your life . A college degree and the experiences and lessons you learn along the way sticks with you for life

Choose wisely....
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