PPRuNe Forums - Airline now hiring

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have lived up here in South East Asia for more years than I care to remember, and while I don't fly for MAS I do fly for a major airline in the region (in the front left seat).

You may or may not be aware that in the last five years over 12 new airlines have started up in the South East Asian region. The largest of them, Air Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur has over 120 Boeing 737s. If you add up the number of aircraft the Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) have introduced to the region over the last 5 years it easily exceeds 300.
At the same time, Singapore Airlines has been expanding, albeit slowly.
Airlines generally work on about 7 crews per aircraft.
You do the maths. 7 x 2 = 14 pilots per aircraft.
14 x 300plus = A LOT

ALSO, India has recently de regulated its aviation industry and several LCCs have started up there. Since there were a lot of Indians working for South East Asian airlines like MAS & SQ, some Indians have taken the opportunity to go home.

AT THE SAME TIME the LCC market in Europe has been expanding, and some Europeans working in this part of the world have also taken the opportunity to go home.

FINALLY, the value of some of the Asian currencies has gone seriously downwards in the last few years. The Singapore Dollar devalued by about 30% a couple of years back. If you were sending money back home (wherever that is) that meant you are sending back considerably less now than you were.
The airlines, stuck with things like SARS, Bird Flu and oil prices going through the roof, have tried very hard to block pay rises for pilots and indeed all their staff.
The simple fact however, is that the supply of pilots worldwide is now considerably less that the demand.

One particular LCC tried starting up with Terms & Conditions (T & Cs) so low, that a couple of weeks before start of operations they had two pilots on their books. When they contacted PARC ( a major recruitment company based in Ireland) and told them what they were offering, they heard laughter and then the phone went dead.

So where this is all leading to is;
1) Airlines in South East Asia are running out of pilots.
2) Airlines are trying hard not to give pay rises.
3) The new start ups are having to offer big money to attract pilots.
4) Pilots in major airlines are leaving to get seriously big money in the start ups (or just going home).

Tinpis2' experience when trying to phone someone and get an answer is probably correct. That's a cultural thing. Phoning someone out of the blue and asking blunt questions goes over like a lead balloon here. Also a lot of people in this part of the world work on the idea that "If I don't make a decision, I can't be blamed for making a bad one." So you would have been put on hold and passed from extension to extension until eventually you gave up. No decision made - no blame for a bad decision.

So how do you get somewhere ?
These are my suggestions and I can make no guarantees.

1) Make sure you know your geography. So many Aussies ( & Kiwis) come up here and quite literally don't know which country they are in.

2) There are quite a few people in positions of power here who do not have educations at Rocket Science levels. The situation is improving rapidly but there still are people who will have your CV land on their desk, and if it is not short and simple, it will stay on the desk until the humidity rots it away. Keep your C.V. short and simple. More than one page is too much.

3) Write or e mail the Director of Flight Ops / Chief Pilot of your target airline asking for the opportunity to meet with them so you can learn from them what you can do to make your application have a greater chance of success. This obviously means that you will have to save your money and come up to
S.E. Asia. If you do this, do not expect to come up on Wednesday's flight, have the meeting on Thursday and go back home Friday. Power plays, poor records of appointments and just the fact that these sorts of guys are genuinely busy, means you may have to hang around the office for a few days before getting to see anyone.

4) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES start a sentence with "Back home in Oz". That sentence p1sses people off so much you might get thrown out of the country just for saying it!

5) Lastly, recognise that airlines will, out of preference, recruit their own nationals first (QANTAS prefer Aussies remember). After that they will tend to recruit 'look alikes'. Perhaps a more politically correct phrase might be 'nationals of other ASEAN countries'. White boys will be last on their list.

There is so much more to say like, do not expect it to be like an extended Bali type holiday, do not expect the phones to work all the time, do not expect to be able to drink the water from the tap, do not expect good pay when flying a DHC 6 around the jungle, do not complain if every meal is rice or noodles, do not complain if your Captain is a local who was treated like sh1t by a white master when he was younger and is getting his own back on you, do not expect the 'good' trips.

But most of all.
There are jobs up here for those who really want them.

All the best of luck.