If the pilot shortage is real and the response is to greatly increase pilot pay, should airlines be lobbying regulators to make it easier to recruit foreign pilots via more H1-B visas?
Could Pilot Shortage Be Solved Through More H1-B Visas?
It is my understanding that foreign pilots who wish to apply for a green card to work in American, must obtain a EB-2 (NIW) visa. That includes the following requirements:
- 10 years minimum full-time experience flying as an airline pilot
- Professional license/certification to fly
- Proof of pilot’s salary/other remuneration for the services which demonstrate exceptional ability
- Evidence of membership(s) in a professional pilot association(s)
- Evidence of the recognition of the pilot’s achievements as well as all applicable significant contributions to the industry – either by colleagues, government entities, professional and/or business organizations
- Academic records showing a degree, diploma or certificate related to the aviation industry from a college, university, school, or other comparable institutions
- Any additional evidence which would be considered comparable, such as previous training, experience, managerial duties, or ability in the field which is otherwise exceptional
These are very powerful visas in the sense that they lead to a green card quicker than other visas, which is the pathway to citizenship in the USA.
But the drawback is that they can take 18 months or more to process.
H1-B visas, on the other hand, typically take only 3-5 months to process. One issue with H1-B visas is that a “national interest waiver” is required, which essentially means the job should not replace the job an American worker can do. In the past pilots simply looking to fly for commercial airlines were denied H1-B visas (their work was deemed non-essential), but those who served as both pilots and flight instructors were more likely to successfully obtain an H1-B visa. Another issue that there is such a high demand for H1-B visas that a lottery is in place, making them unpredictable even if pilots have a guaranteed job offer from a US carrier.
Maybe airlines should direct their lobbying efforts directed at lawmakers to allocate more H1-B visas for qualified pilots or a whole new visa category meant to make it easier for pilots to come to the USA?
CONCLUSION
Sooner or later the pilot shortage will be filled. Yet we see that pilots have been successful in negotiating very sweet contracts due in part to the shortage now. One way to end this shortage would be to make it easier for qualified foreign pilots to immigrate to the USA. If not, then why not?
Considering the immigration name calling in washington these days, I don’t see it getting on anyone’s agenda. I also don’t see ALPA joining in any support for it either. The two year retirement extension might gain some traction. But don’t expect great assistance on the visa issues anytime soon. IMO.
Wait till the union seen this post, they will make up all kind of xenophobic stuff. They will have a meltdown if the airlines even say one word about this
@Rozellev … Notice that the list of requirements does not include English fluency . The ALPA would be correct .
You obviously haven’t hired or worked with H1b workers in big tech before. You get what you pay for.
Don’t forget it was H1b’s that were largely responsible for the Boeing’s woes (read: 737 Max debacle) when they decided to outsource coding outside of the US.
And now you want them to be pilots? H_E_L_L no.
Have you worked with H1B visa users before? It doesn’t seem like you have if you’re stereotyping all into this myopic view. There are many many great H1B folks in big tech and elsewhere.
Your logic of “H1B visas were responsible for the MAX debacle because Boeing outsourced the work outside the US” makes no sense. If Boeing outsourced the work outside the US, then by definition, H1B visa users were not responsible.
If you “get what you pay for” than you should be getting quite a lot. Most H1-b eligible jobs are very highly skilled and highly paid.
The H-1b program should simply be cancelled outright. The USA survived up until 1990 without it and it’s mostly filled by IT tech workers who do subpar work but it’s tolerated because many IT managers simply don’t care and want to drive down wages in general. Google “Security Breaches Don’t Affect Stock Price”
It would be better to reform pilot training to make it more affordable instead of a winner-take-all system of senior pilots at airlines pulling in $200K while the regional guys starting out work for peanuts. Even worse, the 1500 hour rule pushes out local aspiring pilots (particularly minorities or otherwise disenfranchised students) who can’t afford to go to pilot school and spend tens of thousands of dollars to qualify.
As a side observation, “internships” usually benefit the upper/middle class whose parents can afford to subsidize their kid working for “free” in order to generation “social connections” (wink) which effectively locks out the lower classes. Should be made illegal like child-labor.
But if the program is canceled how would people like you ever make to the US?
“it’s mostly filled by IT tech workers who do subpar work”
So much nonsense.
I was born in the states.
Some funny stories about the H-1b tech geniuses. One of them called a colleague and asked how to change his directory. (cd \directory). He had a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (supposedly). I looked up a similar guy who was bugging me and it turns out his “university” was some home where he had to pay a bribe to get a “paper copy” of his diploma.
I now refuse to be medically treated by anyone I suspect is an H-1b. It might require me to drive an hour or wait for an appointment, but it’s my and my family’s health.
Are the big tech workers going to be the ones flying the planes? What you’re saying makes no sense.
No, absolutely not.
H1-B visa expansions aren’t a great way to go with dealing with the pilot supply issues.
Give away American jobs when there are WAY more applicants already than positions filled. The pilot shortage is media hysteria. MAJOR ATC shortages …yes. 100% inept federal governemnt..yes… 3rd world bad. We do NOT have a shortage of pilots in the USA.
There is no pilot shortage. This is industry hype, being used as an excuse to undercut U.S. jobs. Every pilot job, openly advertised, gets hundreds of applications (only 1 is chosen). Industry does kind of trial balloon hype. If they back it up with campaign contributions, they get what they want from bought off politicians.
And there isn’t even a shortage of workers in computers science (see DOJ vs Facebook 2020, at USDOJ website). Pre-pandemic, DOJ investigated Facebook. Facebook’s own employees told Federal Investigators, that Facebook finds 30+ fully qualified local STEM/IT workers for every job Facebook openly advertises. The 29+ they turn away (there is only 1 job per ad), were (by Facebook’s own admission to Federal Investigators) better qualified then foreign workers undergoing Green Card certification at Facebook, for similar jobs. Facebook never forward the resume of the 29+ better qualified local STEM/IT workers, to the hiring managers involved in the Green Card certification, because that would invalidate the application.
Facebook hides the Green Card certification ads in 2 Sunday print editions of the SF Chronicle. Facebook refused the free offer of the Chronicle to place the Green Card job ads on the Chronicle website. Facebook required any local STEM/IT applicant to hand mail (stamped letter) their resume to a lawyer’s office in Palo Alto.
Facebook book did this 2600+ times over just the 1.5 year period of the investigation.
Facebook did this because an employee waiting for a Green Card is stuck at Facebook for 10+ years. It is perfectly okay with Facebook to virtually enslave their engineers, in fact they actively discriminate against better qualified local STEM/IT workers in order to obtain an indentured group of foreign STEM/IT workers (hence the 2600 case lawsuit filed by the U.S. DOJ against Facebook).
Facebook and the rest of Big Tech had no issues doubling their local STEM/IT workforce, when they opened up the hiring process. Further, a Google investor recently wrote an article that there never was a STEM/IT shortage. Also look for “Fake/Perm ads” on Youtube (this has been going on for decades).
EB2 is an immigration process to apply for a green card.
H1-B is a visa that a person can enter the country and work before applying a green card. However, H1-B is capped at 65,000 applicants per year and it’s constantly surpassed in the recent 10 years, so a lottery is held every year to see if the applicant is lucky enough to get the chance (which is around 20% chance of getting it recent years) – this is very risky if we need it to ‘solve’ anything.
This (H1-b or any other visa) seems logical to me. There is a need for a specialized role that the current labor pool cannot fill. This is literally why countries have immigrants (or possibly in the case of H1-b pilots, expats).
I’m curious; however, what visa many of the foreign pilots flying on regionals are on. Maybe I’m wrong and they hold US citizenship, but it seems fairly common to encounter pilots on regionals not from the USA. I’ve always assumed it was an attractive place to build up experience before going mainline overseas.
There are no shortages of traditional American workers to fill any job. In the case of low end jobs, illegal immigration causes an oversupply of cheap labor so businesses don’t pay a fair wage and the wage for everyone at this level is low. Tech businesses don’t want to pay wages commensurate with the job so they claim there aren’t tech workers here which is untrue. They just don’t want to pay them. With pilots it is not a pay issue but government created issue due to the burdensome training process for pilots that’s excessive compared to Europe. Government could solve a lot of the problem by encouraging more high passenger wide bodies be used for transcontinental and transatlantic flights but we are going in the opposite direction. The requirement for relief pilots based on hours is the same on narrow and wide bodies. We wouldn’t need as many pilots and wouldn’t have as many traffic jams on the ground and in the air without so many small planes.
“In the case of low end jobs, illegal immigration causes an oversupply of cheap labor so businesses don’t pay a fair wage”
Nah, that’s just the businesses choosing to hire the cheapest worker they can, which is the illegal immigrant, who really can’t afford to hold out for a higher paying job they won’t be getting.
Of course, not sure what this has to do with the topic, just many pilots in the US are illegal immigrants?
“Government could solve a lot of the problem by encouraging more high passenger wide bodies be used for transcontinental and transatlantic flights but we are going in the opposite direction”
Aren’t the majority of transatlantic flights already being operated with wide body planes?
Businesses actually don’t have a choice because the only way they can compete with other businesses is to pay the lowest amount for labor. If we had border security, illegals were deported, and had proper e-verify requirements, wages would instantly rise for all these lower end jobs for Americans to $25 an hour. Higher wages would be offset by less violent crime, less insurance costs, more money being kept in the U.S. and not sent home, and 1 trillion a year in taxes for local/state/federal benefits for illegals and their kids; schooling is 10K alone per kid of illegal.
There has been a push to use more narrow body AC for transatlantic flights to Western Europe. It’s only going to get worse. One solution to reducing the ground and air traffic problem is reducing the number of flights by boosting the seats per AC ala wide body.
“Businesses actually don’t have a choice because the only way they can compete with other businesses is to pay the lowest amount for labor. If we had border security, illegals were deported, and had proper e-verify requirements, wages would instantly rise for all these lower end jobs for Americans to $25 an hour.”
Nah, business would find a cheaper way to pay for people regardless of whether illegal immigrants are there or not. As if illegal immigrants are the reason why the minimum wage isn’t $25 an hour…
“more money being kept in the U.S. and not sent home, and 1 trillion a year in taxes for local/state/federal benefits for illegals and their kids; schooling is 10K alone per kid of illegal.”
Lots of illegal immigrants are paying taxes. So a good chunk of that money is staying in the US.
But none of that is relevant to the issue at hand. What do illegal immigrants have to do with pilots for the airline industry? How does it relate to the issue? It doesn’t have anything to do with Matthew’s POV about recruiting people from overseas to work as pilots under this type of visa.
I’ve written more recommendation letters for EB2 applicants in the last few months than ever before. Even that program is struggling to keep up with the demand – putting more pressure on the H1B system which is already broken beyond belief is not going to solve anything.
Hiring the un-injected pilots who got fired would help.
Right, snapperhead. Hire all 5 of them back. And if you are to stupid to understand basic science, you have no business flying a plane
Just make sure the pilots aren’t recruited from countries with patriarchal cultures. We need pilots that will challenge the Captain if he/she is doing something wrong.
I would say most countries tend to have patriarchal cultures, so good luck with recruiting foreign pilots if wanting to ban imported labor from patriarchal countries.
And if looking for a country without hierarchical cultures to be a major source of imported pilots, even more luck will be needed to fill any pilot shortage in the US.
So we should allow foreigners to undercut american workers so that airlines can root more?
Why don’t we just hire cheaper foreigners for everything then? That will d wonders for the economy …..
There is no pilot shortage . We have more pilots flying for the airlines than before COVID 19 with 10% less of the flying. Those are the numbers .
Why are there so many regional jets sidelined?
Also, if pilots are squeezing an inflation-busting 40% raise at the big three, maybe that is a sign there are not enough pilots…?
“But the drawback is that they can take 18 months or more to process.” It takes that long because of bureaucracy. IF, this is a such a big deal for the country and airlines get the Transportation Department onboard, they can easily put resources behind and process these visas in a few hours. It is all a matter of wanting to get it done or not. How is this different than reaching out to your State Representative to expedite the issuance of a passport? It is all about priorities.
The temporary use of the H-1B is an excellent idea. Congress controls the number of H-1B visas approved each year. If Congress can allocate a number of H-1B visas for pilots, it is only temporary, and can be adjusted each years, as demand dictates. If the company that sponsors them decides they would like to sponsor them for a Green Card, they can, if the person desires one (not every non-immigrant wants to become an immigrant, and not every immigrant wants to become a U.S. Citizen). If the need for pilots changes, as it probably will, congress can, and should, adjust the numbers.
The H-1B visa is a simple solution already on the books. With an ability to be adjusted by congress each year, as needed.
I just went thru the NIW process, and the visa was granted. It took seven months, paying the “fast track” processing fee.
I must say that allocating more H-IB visas doesn’t contribute to the pilots shortage crisis at all.
Employers (due to pilots union’s demands) request a valid work permit in the USA BEFORE applying for a pilot job. No airline is sponsoring work visa, hence the H-1B is futile in this scenery.
Airlines must lobby with unions first to ease the hiring requirements before asking for more H-1B allocations.
A completely irresponsible proposal. Developing and democratising commercial air travel is still a huge issue in many countries of the Global South- I am sure Sean will agree.
Pilots in many places have benefitted from taxpayer-funded education systems and/or training within the armed forces. I can sort of understand that sort of thing when it happens e.g. with underpaid nurses, but pilots tend to be well paid in most places.
You are suggesting that the US should adopt a policy which may end up leaving communities in Tanzania and around the Himalayas with severely damaged links to the outside world so that a bunch of people who live in McMansions don’t have to drive for a couple of hours to a major airport.
Don’t consider this a personal attack, but I am genuinely surprised that someone who has been involved in some sort of humanitarian work in Africa would advocate for such a policy without even the smallest mention of its likely consequences on the less fortunate residents of the planet.
Yet it seems to work for Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad. They get a free pass but you question the U.S. in perhaps considering a program of luring in foreign pilots? In fact, one can say the ME 3 also dilute the U.S. pilot pool in luring many Americans over with tax free living, fast track to wide body intl, and subsidized housing. In my opinion they started this. They created many of the shortages. Here is a solution to battle back.
I agree that it’s not ideal with those countries, but there are two key differences – they tend to focus on bigger planes and they just aren’t a totally huge market. ET can afford to pay a bit extra to retain an A350 captain and it won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t manage to launch daily flights to MAD- the economics are totally different when it comes to smaller carriers flying Embraers etc to remote locations, for which the impact of service reductions can be devastating.
I am an early-middle-aged obsolete, unemployable American programmer. The H1B visa has decimated my career. But since my career has already been lost, I am 100% for the H1B visa destroying other worker’s careers as it means lower costs to me as a consumer.