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Contract Flying In China


Johnny

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A friend of mine sent me this link, free 300 (or so) page book to download. Written by an American Pilot, who did a stint on contract in China.

Flying Upside Down

https://www.dropbox.com/s/95yeucll1sy14qx/Flying%20Upside%20Down.pdf?dl=0

Be forewarned, this "good ol'boy" loves foul language. Having spent most of my career flying to China, not much surprised me.

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Being an expat who has spent a fairly long time in China I was quite curious about the experiences of others so I read this book in its entirety (which, at +400 pages, turned out to be about 300 pages too many). It is entertaining and I can sympathize with many of the stories presented. But with that said, it reads a tad too far to the side of hyperbole for my taste and definitely has more than a faint odour of the same racism it complains about. The stories sound like those of a group with very little expat experience (even if not all came from the U.S.) operating a type that was unlikely to have given them much previous international exposure, that were dropped with little assistance into a Chinese carrier that seems to be at the bottom of the barrel in how it treats its pilots. Other groups at other carriers have experienced similar things, but to my knowledge, generally not to the same degree that the author describes.

Pete

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I have a friend with Korean.

If it's one of your last options, I suppose. But you'll have to hold your nose while you do it. It's not a great life. Clearly, flying for a large international carrier in your country of residence/citizenship is the way to go.

Being an expat might pay well, but I suspect 95% of expat pilots would return to their country of origin if they could get a job there. But with seniority lists, crazy recruiting/selection testing and other issues, sometimes it just doesn't workout like people plan.

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Being an expat might pay well, but I suspect 95% of expat pilots would return to their country of origin if they could get a job there. But with seniority lists, crazy recruiting/selection testing and other issues, sometimes it just doesn't workout like people plan.

Is it possible that your suspicions may be influenced by not knowing too many of that 95%?

True, there is no place like home, if home is Canada, but the same is not quite so true if home means working for a Canadian airline. I left Canadian aviation of my own volition a bit more than 15 years ago and really haven't ever looked back. Since then it's been entertaining, stressful, profitable and most of the other things in between, but there are no serious regrets about what I might have missed by staying. While I really enjoyed my career in Canada, there was a lot we did (like 15 hours on duty with a 2 man crew when 8-10 was the norm overseas) that I've never done since, and I certainly did it at a much lower salary than I've ever had since.

Perhaps luckily, I never actually had to leave Canada itself, though at times I was away for longer stretches than I'd like (the longest was ~60 days, but mostly it has varied from 3 to 21 days). In that time I've worked for 4 different overseas carriers (including Korean), and with 3 of them my work has mainly been operating flights to/from Canada. Really, it's not been so much different from what a pilot working long haul for a Canadian carrier would experience (allowing for cultural differences), just with the HQ at the other end of the route. Of course, not every expat's circumstances are the same, but you may be surprised at how many have some resemblance to this.

So, the assumption that the majority of expat pilots are sitting wherever they are pining away for the good old days in Canadian aviation may not hold water as well as you suspect. Around the places I've worked, and with the various expat folks on this forum I know, it just hasn't been the case.

The primary key to success with expat work is diligent investigation before you jump, because it definitely is true that in our seniority driven system coming back after you've left will not be easy.

Pete

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