SamVino
29th Mar 2016, 05:17
Hello guys, i was wondering if anyone had some advices or experiences on going to the USA or Canada to become a pilot. What is the process to transform the license I would get there to Europe to be hired by a company?
Do you guys know any good schools?
Or do you think the chances to get a job are lower than after a European school ?
Thanks
Global_Global
29th Mar 2016, 14:37
ehhh read the few thousand threads on pprune first. Understand the difference between faa and easa and the hiring policies of airlines in Europe... Then come back here with those questions :8
tomuchwork
30th Mar 2016, 00:32
In a nutshell - flying in the US was/is fun(at least is was before they became nuts after 9/11).
If you go for FAA - be prepared to fly for little money as an FI for a while, 1000-1500 hours. Then maybe a job in one of their very bad paid regionals. After some further years become capt. there(or try your luck and even more importantly, your relations, and get a job in one of the main carriers as a FO - be prepared to stay FO for a very long time). Then maybe Capt. there(if you do not prefer to retire as FO due to good seniority). Never really liked their system, but that's a different story and most likely cultural differences EU/US.
Europe: Easier(much, much) to have a chance for a not really bad paid airline job. I would suggest you do your training over here, do the license, get hours(preferably in the US or some other place cheap to get hours), do CPL/IFR/ME and then the frozen ATPL.
After that(or during) send out applications to all known operators. Good times at the moment, ME and Chinese Market drying out the pool of the restless and makes space for new recruits.
Quiet some jobs around taking Cadets nowadays or low time FO's.
Example? Did my hour building in the US a looooooong time ago, did it with one of their regional feeder flying schools(Comair Sanford) and had during my first hours a lovely US lady being my flying instructor. She had at that time already good 1500 hours under he belly, myself 45.
I left after 2 months with 150ish hours, did as I wrote above, got pretty soon hired by a mid sized airline back in Europe to fly the CRJ.
2(!!) years later the same happened to her, she got a job with Comair on the CRJ, FO of course.
4 years after I got hired I became Capt on the CRJ, she was still an FO over there. A bit later she decided to get kids and resigned.
It can be a long way to go over there, especially if you want to head for the airlines. If you just want to instruct piston then it would be worth a shot.