Getting Your Aviation Career Started in China

cmhumphr

cmhumphr

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

I am in hot pursuit of trying to get my career started in China. Airlines like China Eastern, China Southern, Air China, And EVA Air to name a few are some of my dream airlines. However, I'm not quite sure where to begin this journey. As far as networking, I've made connections at Air Macau, through a friend who is an FO for them, as well as China Eastern. I've also managed to land two flight operation internships if that helps me with anything. So would a good step be to go to a regional and get experience as well as time, then apply or what?
 
Calling EVA Air a Chinese airline would probably not make a positive impression on your interview. ;-)
 
I'm also interested in working in China. I know two pilots who are training for the 737. They only had their commercial and 250. I wonder if they do the same for americans?
 
I do know of a couple companies that hire with no time on type so the biggest thing would be to just get an Airbus type, which is very valuable over there.

jspeed87, what airlines are you looking at for work?
 
Which companies are you referring to? It is my understanding that to be employed as a foreign pilot you need to have TIT in order to occupy the seat of a an aircraft such as an Airbus. Also the Chinese pilots with 250tt have contracts with their company that are often life long contracts. The longest a contract you can sign with a Chinese airline is 5 years. So the question you have to ask yourself is why would they invest the time and money to train you when they can employ a Chinese speaking pilot for a much longer contract? You can fly for a Chinese airline if you play your cards right, but it is not easy to get established here in China and requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Unless you already posses PIC TIT and are referring to a job here as Captain then the chances of flying here in China are slim. I'm curious why you want to work in China? Do you have yellow fever or something? :)
 
popaviator said:
Which companies are you referring to? It is my understanding that to be employed as a foreign pilot you need to have TIT in order to occupy the seat of a an aircraft such as an Airbus. Also the Chinese pilots with 250tt have contracts with their company that are often life long contracts. The longest a contract you can sign with a Chinese airline is 5 years. So the question you have to ask yourself is why would they invest the time and money to train you when they can employ a Chinese speaking pilot for a much longer contract? You can fly for a Chinese airline if you play your cards right, but it is not easy to get established here in China and requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Unless you already posses PIC TIT and are referring to a job here as Captain then the chances of flying here in China are slim. I'm curious why you want to work in China? Do you have yellow fever or something? :)
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Lmao at yellow fever. It has just always interested me man. I love their culture more than anything. I went to Hong Kong and Macau about a month ago for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it. It's something I have been driven to do. I'm still a fairly young guy with a long road ahead, but I think I'm off to a very good start. My friend has proved it possible to me that getting a job there takes hard work and dedication like you said. However, I will put in the time and patience.

What company are you with popaviator?
 
cmhumphr said:
I do know of a couple companies that hire with no time on type so the biggest thing would be to just get an Airbus type, which is very valuable over there.

jspeed87, what airlines are you looking at for work?
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I was looking at HongKong Airlines. I have a friend who is studying for his ATP written in order to get on with them. He was born in Bangladash, and has a fresh FAA CMEL. He told me, knowing someone from the inside is the only way to get a shot with low time.
 
Yeah I've heard the same thing. It seems pretty standard to have around 1500-2000TT and a type rating. I think networking should do you wonders.
 
To the OP, I too am interested in picking up a contract in China at some point in the future, and the route I am going to take is instruct for a few more years, and then go for a regional in the U.S. that flies ERJ's. Build some jet time and get picked up as an FO. Tianjin airlines for instance flies ERJ's and has done a good chunk of hiring of climbto350.com Paying for an A320 type rating might be in the realm of something I would do as well, but only if I had a decent amount of jet time as well.

Another thing you want to consider doing is learning Mandarin. This is for the ease of transition into the culture. I know you said you went to Macau and Hong Kong, which is good but the thing is, these are popular tourist destinations and therefore are friendly to English speaking folk and easy to live in. There's a good chance you don't end up living in a city like those should you get hired by a Chinese airline. You're going to end up in a city like Tianjin, Xi'an, or Guangzhou. These are not cities where English is spoken very much. You can say now "Oh, I'll learn to deal with it", but the fact is, not being able to talk to many people is depressing and infuriating. Mandarin is an extremely tough language as well, so I suggest you get a head-start. It'll look good on the resume too.

Last thing, if you've never worked in Asia, then you really need to, before you set your life goal as doing just that. It is nothing compared to the U.S. Not even close. The frustrations you will encounter are aplenty, and although I don't know, I would wager that a lot of pilots pick up contracts in China, and then just say f*** it because they couldn't deal with and were never actually prepared for the culture shock. Going there as a tourist does not prepare you for actually working there.
 
You'll be surprised how much Cantonese I picked up on just being there for a week, it's pretty cool. I do agree with you that learning their language is a definite plus however not required. Most the pilots are leaving because as expats, they aren't entitled to the things they used to be.
 
Cantonese is not Mandarin. HK is one of the few cities that speaks Cantonese now. I did not say that learning the language was required. I said it for your own good. If you've never lived and worked in Asia, please don't make vague judgments as to why the expats are leaving.
 
I know that Cantonese is not Mandarin. I wasn't comparing the two. All I said was you pick up a lot of their language just by being there involved with daily life. I'm not making a vague judgement. I get all my info from pilots currently working from over there.
 
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