After Flight School Dillema Philippines
 

Hey guys,

Just finished flight school around 3 mos ago. 240TT, CPL, MER, IR and FI rated.

I applied to almost all companies and flight schools in the Philippines but no returns. All flight schools have full rosters of flight instructors that’s why it’s really hard to find an instructing job.

A question to our successful pilots, what steps did you take after finishing flight school and how long did you wait before you got your first gig? Do I rent and get additional hours? Do I keep on applying? Do I get an additional rating?

Any help in pointing me and a lot more newbie pilots in the right direction would be of great help! Thank you!

Hi ! If you are aiming for the airlines in the Philippines, go for Airbus Type Rating.

This would help if local airlines are simply looking for A320 rating on new applicants. Now, they require at least 1500 on type plus the 320 rating. This is a common practice nowadays with philippine based carriers

Newly released batch this month were fresh from type rating without experience when they were hired.

An A320 rating is still a hit and miss. Even pre-COVID, back in 2017-18, only one or two of my batchmates were able to get into the airlines on their own. Others had to go through pay to fly programs with some airlines which cost a few million pesos / tens of thousands of dollars (that's after spending almost 2 million pesos for an A320 Rating).

The rest just stopped pursuing the airlines after their ratings expired since they couldn't afford recurrency training on the A320 (just over 2k USD if I remember correctly). That's not to say that airlines didn't have hiring frenzies before, because they did.

But my school specialized in producing A320 pilots through an ab initio program but graduates haven't experienced mass hirings since 2014. Since then, it all comes down with who you know or how deep your pockets are.​​​​

Pre-Covid, CebGo was looking for FOs for the ATR. Requirements were 500 TT with at least 25 ME. Getting an A320 rating was also an option back then. Totally different story now, with this pandemic.

Based on current situation its not advisable to spend money 320 rating for next 1 or 2 years