EASA ATPL TO FAA ATP
 

Hello. I am considering the option of converting my EASA ATPL to a FAA ATP.
I have about 1650 hours and sadly my company has gone in to administration so looking in to all possibilities.
I have an American spouse so green card etc should not be an issue.


I have a vague idea of all the steps involved
FAA Medical (Currently have a class 3 from flight training)
TSA
Send over documents to FAA
Exams
Skills test

Does anyone have any experience with this and more importantly the cost of this?

Appreciate any feedback.

You might want to take a look at going to a US regional. If they'll take you without an FAA license and get you an FAA ATPL via their training program the cost would only be your time and effort. A great job ? Nope. Steppingstone.

At least ask them the question. My guess is they'd be interesting in talking to you...just a guess on my part.

Thank you for your reply.
I wouldn't mind going that rute considering the market is really down at the moment and our redundancy couldn't have come at a worse time..

Any suggestions to companies that I should email?

Well, all of them and see what happens. IIRC, Gojet, Expressjet and Commuteair take Aussies right off the boat with no FAA tickets and get them FAA tickets via the customary training process. I understand you're not an Aussie but the 3 carriers mentioned would be accustomed to the legal/admin/flt ops process of taking in people without FAA tickets. I suppose any regional can run that process but I don't known what the reaction would be to a non-FAA applicant at the others. Maybe someone who's not an Aussie and in your situation will comment.

You can get the details of each here. And the regional forum will give you lots of "opinions" of each. Let's just say they aren't legacy carriers. Good luck...hope it works out for you:

https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/regional

It’s not too difficult to convert your EASA ATP to an FAA ATP. The main steps are:
Foreign license verification
ATP CTP course (5K)
ATP written test
ATP checkride

The question here is, if you can find a Regional that is willing to do the conversion for you. There are some Regionals that pay for the ATP CTP course as a bonus and then you can combine the ATP checkride with your type rating check on company costs. This whole process will cost you only very little money if at all. But I think to convert your license on your own dime doesn’t make too much sense since your overall TT and experience is too low to get hired at anything else than a Regional. Legacies and LCC/ Majors will not look at you. You might be able to get into some cargo or ACMI companies though. To get the Greencard takes usually at least six months. All the best and sorry to hear about your company. Were you with Flybe?

Thank you for all your responses. I will email these companies tonight and hopefully get some further information.
And yes, thats the one.

Just a quick point. Some of the US regionals will be reluctant to talk to you until you get the greencard. Expressjet, Gojet etc will talk to you and have hired people without an FAA ATP. Im sure others have too. Once you have the Greencard in hand things move very quickly.

Remember though that an FAA ATP requires 250 PIC and 100 night.

I wouldn’t bother until you just about have your green card in hand. From the time you submit for an IR1 or CR1 visa (spousal visa/green card), it’s taking anywhere from 9-18 months to get it approved.