Why?
(Potentially stupid) question from this SLF:
*Why* do the Chinese airlines pay so much to expats?
China has >1 billion citizens, they should be easily able to educate enough of them to become pilots. The salaries they're offering to expats are so high that they're comparable to someone in the US making $100k PER MONTH! Somehow, I can't imagine they lack candidates...
Is it possible that someone there knows about the cultural difference and uses it to improve the safety overall because he knows that the asian pilot will just follow the SOPs, no matter what happens, while the expat pilot has his skills and airmanship to fall back on in a situation that's not covered by an SOP?
From what I read here, the asian pilots function rather like a quite versatile autopilot, one that could quite possibly be rolled out fairly soon by Airbus or Boeing.
As an SLF, I'd still want a well-trained captain on board to deal with unforeseen problems, not a redundant autopilot^W^Wasian pilot...
(Now crawling back under my damp rock... ;-))