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Flying in Europe

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polysciguy9

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 10, 2005
Posts
96
I wasn't able to find any information on this - so I thought I'd throw the question out there. What are the prospects of American pilots being hired at European carriers? If you were able to get work status in a country (let's say England) could you take your FAA ratings to Europe and fly there? I don't know what the market is for pilots in Europe. Thanks for the help with this question!
 
From my research you need completely different licenses to fly there. Im not sure what the process entails but it may require you being tested. Most airlines hire ab-initio pilots that go through flight school over there. All the jobs Ive found over there require high time guys with 121 airline experience all ready.
 
a few european pilots come to the us to do thier training, cost and ability to make long flights without transitioning into other countries is a player in that.

but, once their training is complete, they do indeed need to get certified in europe. there are differences, like US aircraft flying in canada.

as for us pilots hired onto european airlines, that's not too easy. your best lead might be to talk to your FBO chief and see if that company has trainined foreign pilots to gather contact info so that you can speak directly with a european airline pilot.

$.02
 
I know of several Americans flying for KLM. nice guys.

FD
 
Apperantly there are some americans comming over to europe at the moment to fly as captains on B737NG on their FAA licenses. They fly on some sort of validation for some time before they convert to JAA licenses.
 
I applied to a couple of European airlines when I lived over there. I could not get the time of day from them. I was a low timer at the time, and I know Lufthansa is big on ab-initio.

Having said all that, I did fly over there (MIL) for five years and heard American pilots flying with all the airlines. That or the Germans were speaking damn fine english!
 

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