Pilots Needed: Travel Required

0

It may be the ultimate irony that airline pilots can easily find lucrative jobs — as long as they’re willing to travel. According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, American pilots are flying the coop on cash-starved, morale-depressed, pension-gutting domestic carriers and landing high-paying jobs in Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. Former U.S. Airways pilot Brian Murray now works for Emirates Airlines and says it’s like returning to the Golden Age of aviation in the U.S. He told the Journal that pilots are “treated with respect in this part of the world. We’re driven to work. We’re put in four- and five-star hotels, on the concierge floors. Captains are treated as vice presidents of the organization.” And there’s no shortage of work. Asia will be the hotbed of aviation growth in the next couple of decades with as many as 6,000 pilot jobs opening up each year, according to Boeing. Globally, 18,000 aircraft will be added to the worldwide fleet over the next 20 years, translating to about 18,000 pilot jobs per year, many of them in countries that don’t have the training facilities necessary to meet the demand. Murray says the 1,350 pilots at Emirates come from 70 countries.

LEAVE A REPLY