Originally Posted by
pfvspnf
. Further oversupply in the market with less demand in the Middle East , where will you go ? Will you have the skill and knowledge level to pass an assessment anywhere else after being spoon fed everything ? Some might , I take it most will struggle .
While i do agree to most of what you said before the quoted text....the ground realities from ABY are:
1. Most MPLS who got inducted in 2011 are currently in various stages of command upgrade programme. Some of them scheduled to finish line training this month end. We are actually short of Capts now. its just one of those cycles where we are either short of capts or FOs. 4 years back we had multiple flights with 2 capts due to lack of FOs.
2. This region has been unstable for one reason or the other. we lost Syrian and Yemen destinations along with overfly permits as well. The other hubs apart from SHJ never really got off. Having said that they have announced new destinations starting next month.
3. Most FOs who chose not to upgrade are flying in EK, EY and QR. a few in Salaam, Saudi gulf and far east in Vietnam.
4. current bunch of MPL passouts are facing uncertain times as there are no confirmed jobs available after 1500 hrs contracts but atleast they get their ATPL before they leave. i have no clue about bond. Before QR was an attractive airline as they needed just 1000 hrs on type. Dont know how the current regional crisis is going to affect movement to that side
5. Still we do have regular resignations of FOs moving to EK. They keep calling our guys on a weekly basis. Bumped into 5 of our ex FOs in EK training college cafeteria a while ago.
6. 1500 to 2000 hrs of flying right seat in ABY is really worth it as it exposes the FOS to a lot of varied flying conditions. Atleast in ABY it is strictly one sector Capt PF and the other sector for FO. and FO PF means from eng start , taxi , takeoff, landing , taxi in , eng shut down till parking. you get to land in 45 degs bumpy conditions into SHJ and ME region (as it is now...pity the trainees) and -25 deg in Moscow or Kiev. Land in 5000 ft elevation in Nairobi , shoot VOR approaches in Iran/Saudi/Pakistan/India/Bangladesh. NDB approaches into certain airfields in iran.
So its all fun...and a little bit of hardwork...but well worth its while.
Most of ex ABY FOs have passed assessments in the other big 3 airlines. Many of them holding 2 offers from EY and EK. So yeah the FOs are pretty wet behind their ears when they start off...but in a couple of years they are doing just fine.