Looking to move to Europe for flight training
 

Hey guys, first post here and I’m looking for a bit of advice.

I currently live in Australia and have a PPL and an aeronautical engineering degree. I am looking to go to Europe to do further training and end up with an EASA (frozen) ATPL. I’m not a national of an EU country. From what I know, an EASA licence is accepted worldwide, which is why I am keen to train in Europe. I would love to live and work in Europe but I understand that getting a work permit is very difficult (tried applying for engineering jobs in Europe as well but got nowhere with it).

I am looking for some advice about where I should go to train. I have looked at schools such as OSM Sweden, Pilot Flight Academy Norway, Patria in Finland and Keilir in Iceland, but I am open to considering other schools. I speak fluent German but I haven't found any flight schools in Germany that allow non-Europeans into their programs. (Lufthansa would've been the dream!)

Also, what would my job prospects be? From what I have looked at so far, I haven’t found any airlines looking to hire foreign nationals with low hours. (Singapore airlines and Cathay are the only two I found with second officer programs) I'd be happy to work as an instructor/charter pilot or anything else within or outside of Europe but I am yet to see any company/flight school willing to hire foreign nationals without guaranteed working rights for these jobs. I am hoping having an engineering degree as well helps me out, but not having working rights in Europe is a big disadvantage.

Would really appreciate some advice from people with similar experiences.

Cheers

You are correct, most employers are looking for people with an unrestricted right to work in the EU, European nationals or individuals who possess an EU residence permit. As far as flight schools go, I can tell you about Patria in Finland. They unfortunately do not offer the ATPL Training Program for individual students who can’t perform their theory training in Finnish. For now, the only way to attend their ATPL Training as a non-Finnish-speaking student is through specific international airlines that are working in collaboration with them. The airline does the selection, recruitment and admission of students themselves and they are solely just the training organization. All the decisions, timetables, tuition fees and contracts are made between airline and the student.