Brit in the USA moving back to the U.K.

[Deadpool]

Hello everyone. I'm new to this forum so please forgive my ignorance on the current aviation climate in the U.K.

So, I got my JAA PPL about 13 years ago in San Diego California. Met the girl, got married, got the green card, instructed, flew for a regional airline and now fly private. I have Type ratings in the Saab 340, Dash 8 (Q400) and King Air 350 and have over 7,000 hours flight time. Currently looking into my FAA to EASA conversion.

My question is, with my hours and experience, who could I realistically be competitive for? I.E. Flybe considering I have the type or maybe even something a little more lucrative?

Also, how is the hiring environment right now? Its fair to say the pretty much every major airline here in the Sates is hiring and the regionals are practically begging for pilots.

Thanks in advance.

[AutoBit]

Hi Deadpool,

Out of interest how's the conversation from FAA to EASA going? I'm trying to go the other way but haven't had much success with the FAA.

I would say with your background you'd be fairly competitive, although carrier's like Virgin typically want 2500 jet time. BA is another option, but their recruitment is fairly blocked up at the moment with lots of guys 'swimming' in the hold pool.

The big difference that you'll find is UK airlines will typically go through recruitment phases. They'll open for a bit, and then close. Sometimes this can as quick as a few weeks and so it comes down to right place/right time. It will also depend upon weather you get an unrestricted ATPL, or weather the CAA 'Freeze' you for 500 hours.

Just my views and others may disagree. If you've got the Green Card why not apply to the US Majors?

[rudestuff]

It's a good position to be in. With your hours you can go straight to a full ATPL and skip the mandatory ground school and even skip the type rating course. All you need to do is pass the s**ding exams.. how much multi crew PIC time do you have?

[wiggy]

Deadpool

how is the hiring environment right now? Its fair to say the pretty much every major airline here in the Sates is hiring and the regionals are practically begging for pilots.

Leaving non work lifestyle, politics and equivalency of licence/qualifications aside I'd say the UK is nothing like as good for hiring at the moment as the US is reputed to be, certainly not for "decent" jobs.

Just take a look at the "wannabes", and other sub sections here on Pprune, such as the one that button push mentioned ( Terms and Endearment). You'll see there's no shortage of pilots trying to enter the industry in Europe at the entry level and a significant number of experienced pilots looking to move into seats into/ or within the UK. Worse still demand might be drying up - e.g. as has been mentioned the likes of BA have suddenly stopped DEP recruitment, and the hold pool is not showing any sign of being emptied, despite recuitment having been in full flow until recently......

In short there's no shortage.

[Stan Woolley]

For I think that the vast majority of people would consider The United States, the last great place, and would give their back teeth for a ticket out of there.

Really? Not for me, far from it.

[basiljet]

Hi Deadpool

I'm one of th BA hold pool lot 5000hrs half jet above 40tonnes and can't find any other job at all in Europe at the moment unless I pay. Maybe things will turn around I'm hoping so but at the moment it's looking pretty bleak.

[Flocks]

I agree, Flybe information are wrong. Now crew are limited to 750hr a year ... Summer are busy like all airline, winter cool, I did less than 200hr in 4 month.
And there is a lot more (new schedule agreement started this year.)

[Station_Calling]

Any budget US airline like Allegiant, Spirit, Frontier is better than anything the UK has on offer by Easy/Ryan/Jet2

Utter rubbish.

Working for one of those, and with friends at both the others, you don't know what you're taking about.

ps. wasn't it Allegiant that fired a Skipper for ordering an evac?

[HidekiTojo]

Erm your information on FlyBe is wrong. As a second year Q400 FO I clear around £2.5k after tax, before tax that's just under 40k year, that's what my P60 said. In the last year only once have I done a 5 sector day usually 4 and occasionally get 2 sector day which you can freeze so they can't change it. Average 70 hrs a month, it's not an easy life but the crew are great and most people that move on do miss that aspect of the job. Captains do get worked harder pay jumps up a lot, check ppjn for details, get extra for nightstopping/day off payments/ disruption etc.

I agree about UK though. We are considering our options. NHS is down the pan and prices everywhere are going up. We have a household income of not far off 100k before tax and according to the statistics we are in the better off camp but we do not feel like it. Council tax is going up £100 a year our service provider has just informed us our bills will go up by 6%.......crazy

My window cleaner earns more than you.

[SextanteUK]

Really? Not for me, far from it.


Aviation wise, you don't think the US is better than Europe?. Not talking about the country itself or the culture.

[Stan Woolley]

Remember that this is not quite the same thing as the quote I was responding to originally, but....

In my twenties and possibly thirties, aviation-wise I would probably have agreed. I'm well into my fifties now, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and these days I would like to think I've matured enough to realise that there are more important considerations than just aviation.

As I've never actually worked there I don't really know what it's like. But unless you are lucky and get the right job quickly I suspect the difficulties are similar to Europe for an ambitious young pilot. I always enjoyed the openness and willingness of general aviation people in the US to welcome me, and I got a US commercial licence from an FAA office in Hawaii on the strength of my UKatpl, while wandering around on a trip! It was as easy as paying a few bucks, I was amazed at how straightforward it was compared to the pain in the ass CAA in the UK!

But is the US in 2017 the holy grail, taking everything into consideration? As I said, not for me. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend that any kid becomes a pilot these days, unless they were totally absorbed by aeroplanes, as I was. I was one of those that knew exactly what I was going to do, from the age of seven, nothing short of a physical ailment would have prevented me from achieving my aim.

Would I swop my job as a KLM, Air France or BA Captain for one with United or Delta? Probably not. Or a G5 Captain in Europe with one in the US? It depends on what your priorities are. Are the number of opportunities greater in the US, yes, I think so.

These days, I think I'd recommend flying somewhere as far from civilisation as possible! :ok:

[SextanteUK]

Sure, KLM/Lufthansa/BA, but only a handful get to work on those companies compared to Ryanair/Easyjet etc....
Not even Iberia is a good place anymore (I'm from Spain).
My korean friend flies for Skywest, 2 years aprox as F/O and he gets 15/16 days off without pushing. And earning potential is really good.
Southwest has 15 days off minimum by contract, etc...
GA is a whole different world by itself.
I live here in the US, US citizen in a couple of months, and the only reason I think about coming back is my parents, distance sucks.
But in my humble opinion the earning potential here is outstanding, and you work less in most of the carriers (decent ones).

[Reverserbucket]

Deadpool

The best advice I would offer you is to obtain US Citizenship. This would give you options if you do decide to return to the UK and things don't work out or you ever want to return to the US. A Greencard is only of value to you if you wish to reside permanently in the US. Much more opinion I could give based on my own experience but firstly, establish a right to return unless you are absolutely certain you won't want to go back.

[recall_checked]

I never said it was an amazing salary, it's far from good but paid from day one and not far off RYR once you add everything up.

My last 6 RYR FO pay slips averaged 4.5k take home. 5.7k was my best month there. Even with the type rating and uniform costs...you just can't compete with paying very, very little tax.

Still wasn't enough to keep me there...

[MichaelKPIT]

Deadpool

The best advice I would offer you is to obtain US Citizenship. This would give you options if you do decide to return to the UK and things don't work out or you ever want to return to the US. A Greencard is only of value to you if you wish to reside permanently in the US. Much more opinion I could give based on my own experience but firstly, establish a right to return unless you are absolutely certain you won't want to go back.

As an Englishman living in America (and not a citizen myself) I would wholeheartedly agree with this advice. Your Green Card is only good while you're permanently residing here. It's easy to overlook this.

[sonicwave]

>The best advice I would offer you is to obtain US Citizenship.

Generally agree, however, a note of caution and something very worthy of consideration. Once you are a US citizen, you will be required to complete a US tax return, where-ever you live in the world, stating your worldwide income. This can be a tremendous PAIN. It also means that you are effectively inhibited from investing in UK mutual funds and could find it rather difficult to open a UK bank account.

That said, in your situation, being married to a US citizen likely means you filed taxes as 'married' and fall into this situation anyway.

[Reverserbucket]

complete a US tax return, where-ever you live in the world, stating your worldwide income....effectively inhibited from investing in UK mutual funds and could find it rather difficult to open a UK bank account.
If you have kept a UK bank account, it won't be an issue. If not and you return to the UK with US Citizenship, you will be resident in UK and opening a bank account will not be too difficult. Taxes can be a pain though; filing is not a problem - either do it yourself with TurboTax or similar or use a US based accountant, however, depending on where outside of the US you reside and how much your income, you may be subjected to taxation, despite residing outside of the US. Working at somewhere such as EK for example could be a bit painful but in the UK, with the currently weak GBP, it's not likely to affect you in the short term.

[dirk85]

Even just being a green card holder requires you to file a tax return in the US and to pay taxes there, even if you reside somewhere else (with a 100k-ish exemption).
If you want to avoid that you have to forfeit your GC altogether.

[SextanteUK]

No Double taxation though (in most of the countries). Income taxes are higher in UK, so you'll file that tax return but your taxes will be paid in UK if you live and work in UK.
I'm becoming a US citizen this year, it's a no-brainer for me. More pros than cons.

[dirk85]

You can compensate only the federal taxes with the UK, not the state ones, as far as I know.

[SextanteUK]

Yeah it's a tricky subject, and I'd use a professional to help me out for sure. If you are a UK resident, with UK employer and paying UK taxes, I understand you'd have to deal with federal taxes, but not state taxes....from what state anyways, if you don't live in USA anymore.....but this is just opinion. Zero information on my side

[Fire and brimstone]

Is it true FlyBe have an agreement limiting pilot hours to 750 a year?

Most UK airlines I know want more than 900 if they can get it.

Do you have nice management over there?

Which union negotiated that?

[Flocks]

Yes it is true.

Management started to understand, give better life style to crew is only way to keep them to run away from Flybe as soon. As they can.

More less, the big change with previous conditions were :
-If more than 75hrs a month = extra 30£/HR for cpt, extra 18£/hr FO
- 1 week extra holiday for captain, so junior captain or direct entry has 35days initially
- bond for direct entry captain is 2years only now (5 before)
- extra 25£ for night stop (all crew), so if 24hr between check in and check out, you have flight duty allowance 76,36£
- extra 500£ a month for Aberdeen Captain
- only one pay scale (with increase for all) for all Flybe pilot, so no longer salary difference between an ejet cpt/fo and dash cpt/fo (it is a 3years plan, so still difference this year for cpt, April 2018, same scale for all captain Flybe)
- limitation to 750hr a years for dash pilots (775 this year) and 800hrs a year for ejet pilots.
- all pilot cannot do flight duty more than 5 days in a raw, if 6 days on, the first or last day can only be used for positioning the crew member.
- 3 days off in a raw every month garantie
- If asking part time, Flybe has 18months max to give it you.

Personally, I really believe it going to change a lot our life style, lots of crews are more skeptical and want to wait, to see if management will not find a way ...

Again, I give my exemple, but in February and April I had on my rosters​ 16days off with 45/50hrs in the months.

I think it is more less all, I m sure I forget some more ... But does give a good idea of what is new.