Russia pilot shortage
 

Ladies & Gents,
I have learnt from Flight International that mother Russia is getting short of pilots (ave age is 47 and no one wants to replace them) . Does anyone have any info about the possible recruitment scheme now or later and if anyone was "lucky" enough to work for them, what is it like?
I know Aeroflot stigma is rather inadequate, yet considering my fruitless attempts to get into the cockpit with west european airlines, it is an amaizing opportunity, plus i have the lingvo.

Dont know the lingo but I'd go out there!!

:cool:

Well Aeoroflot has changed a lot over the years, and yes its a good company to work for.

But To work out here you need to be able to speak the lingo, and its never to late to learn....



Fly safe

:ok:

The only problem is.......you wouldnt earn enough to pay of a loan never mind live. I saw a report on the pilot situation in Russia, and quite a few of them have to be a taxi driver as a second because they dont earn enough to live !!!

Shocking !

TenAndie,

Get real !!!


You dont have look that far a field TenAndie, there are plenty of pilots here doing 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meat.....

The rate of pay many operators dole out these days, seem to indicate driving a taxi is much more profitable. Perhaps our Ruski friends are just one step ahead of the game ;)


Remember Chocolate is your friend


:E

Mr W

I recall seeing a very interesting documentary a couple of years ago on commercial aviation in Russia just after the Aeroflot empire was broken up. Captains were too embarrassed to quote on camera what their salary was and crews struggled to get by!

Unless you are Russian and have trained in Russia then they won't be interested!

The salary was max 2000 usd for 80hrs on A320 a month for FO. 40% of flight in the night. You must be a Russian,if you want to work for Aeroflot. Now there is a pay rise up to 3000 usd.
Anyway,a lot of pilots have allready left,and a lot of are going to do it.

Yes a shortage of pilots in russia is true, although i know a few medical students from england and the USA who are in russia (Moscow and st petersburg), their course firstly equips them with the knowledge of russian language, which is a minimum of 3 years to become fluent, and thats an intense 5 day week course!

Pay cannot be good, I know that doctors pay is less than $350 a week. yeh three hundred and fifty dollars. and the state of russia at this moment in time, is not good to say the least. the capital also still suffers from raceism, on a larger scale than most locations.

Basicaly if you canot speak russian, its not going to be a good use of time to spend 3 years to learn it.

As for the if you aren't russian statement, thats simply not true. The only difference is that you will be LESS likely to find pilots from the west who would fly for that amount of money. But if you speak russian and fly as they want you too, you could have a job.
But you would have to be extreamly fluent in russian.

Has anyone seen the safety records of the russian airlines? i would presume that if any airline was going to risk on passenger and crew safety it would be the russians cutting corners to save money?

Dear Danny
I can't say for all Russian airlines,but in Aeroflot each flight is analysed.There is a special department,wich takes data recoder from an aircraft and analyses it everyday.So if you were not stable at 1000f or missed transition altitude ,the very next day they will ask you to make report!