Originally Posted by
bafanguy
Reverserbucket,
I suppose it's hard to know how many foreign nationals would qualify under the "married to" or dual citizenship banner to grease the skids into the US regionals. But I suspect those who do just take matters into their hands individually. You'd expect some enterprising FTO to put together a program for them (those with existing non-FAA tickets).
I keep hearing that many regionals are struggling to fill seats but it's mostly anecdotal from here in the Peanut Gallery except for the one where I have a little bit of inside perspective…and it's not the best of the lot (nor the worst). It's puzzling that these airlines would sit there and let things go to pot without exhausting every potential source. Have they ?
There are frequently ways around the ham fisted interference of the kakistocracy.
Maybe it's just not all THAT dire ?
And then, there's that Aussie thing…untapped resource ? Maybe someone should've told Republic. :-))
You're on to something.
First, the major carriers, and many of the smaller large-jet carriers have zero problem filling their seats. People are clamoring to work for them.
If the regionals tried to "press-to-test" on something similar to an H1B visa program, their case would be completely deflated, because, clearly, there are plenty of pilots, and the qualifications to fly at both, majors and regionals are, technically, the same.
Having plenty of potential qualified applicants, but using the argument "well, yea, but we don't want to pay them enough to come work for us" doesn't really work out all that well in this situation.
Very hard to make the case that what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander in this particular set of circumstances.
The long and the short of it, if you want to fly for a US major, you need a lot of time (>5,000 TT) or slightly less time and be ex-military (>2,000TT). It doesn't have to be air carrier time, but at least some should be, and some of that should be turbine PIC. You should have a 4-year (or equivalent degree), and at least show some advancement to a "leadership" position (instructor pilot, checkairman, stand/eval pilot (for mil guys), assistant chief pilot, or even union rep). Have a life outside of work.
If you can check at least some of those boxes (oh, and have a legal right to work in the US), then you stand a reasonable chance at getting looked at without working for the associated regional airline. Super deluxe that one might have 1500 hours in 737s, but if you have 1800 hours total time, that's not going to cut it in the US due to radically different hiring philosophy. Golly, it's neat that someone might have flown a A320, but any US major can train anyone who meets their qualification to fly it, and that person has the same training footprint as someone with previous Airbus time.
One can fuss and fume, but its not going to change any time in the foreseeable future.
Nu