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Entering my 33rd season of flying...thought I had seen it all...


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1 hour ago, CM119 said:

I wouldn’t single just one company out for that.  Lots of companies in Canada  hire foreign non immigrant pilots seasonally from what I’ve seen.  I’m sure there are lots of loopholes for essential crew and emergency services that can applied for under certain visas for said pilots.  Either way follow the bottom line figure for each pilot and I’m  sure you’ll have your answer as to why this phenomina seems to prevail in Canada every year, no wonder wages are so stagnant.

100%. Plenty of guys work down in Aus for the fire season on similar visa’s
 

The main thing is no one low balls. No matter if it’s eh or mate…. 

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23 minutes ago, Bee3 said:

100%. Plenty of guys work down in Aus for the fire season on similar visa’s
 

The main thing is no one low balls. No matter if it’s eh or mate…. 

Unfortunately it does come down to dollars and cents, it’s a business

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Every single company in Canada is looking for pilots and engineers just look in the careers tab, simply too many aircraft and not enough guys.

the foreign drivers fill the seat to get by for the season, some stay and make a life here and still carry an accent. 

As said will be interesting to see how much iron sits as no drivers

back to the original post... the market is in our hands wages are going up for pilots and engineers here's to a safe summer ahead 

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26 minutes ago, Pinnacle said:

Every single company in Canada is looking for pilots and engineers just look in the careers tab, simply too many aircraft and not enough guys.

the foreign drivers fill the seat to get by for the season, some stay and make a life here and still carry an accent. 

As said will be interesting to see how much iron sits as no drivers

back to the original post... the market is in our hands wages are going up for pilots and engineers here's to a safe summer ahead 

So rinse and repeat then. And no not every single company is looking. Mostly just the usual suspects.

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14 hours ago, Bee3 said:

100%. Plenty of guys work down in Aus for the fire season on similar visa’s
 

The main thing is no one low balls. No matter if it’s eh or mate…. 

Excellent point Bee3. Like it or not the Canadian & Australian industries are reliant on each other, largely due to having very similar cultures & being in opposite hemispheres. In times of rapid expansion Canada struggles to have enough task ready experienced pilots for the remote area utility work, & Australia doesn’t have the non-fire work available for pilots to be able to gain the minimum medium experience required for fires. The advice given to pilots in Australia by the major medium operators is “go to Canada” for training & experience, & as you mentioned, every year there are Canadians on nearly every fire in Australia where a medium or heavy is involved.

My numbers might be a bit out of date as I’m going off memory here - Canada has a population of 40 million & has 270 mediums on the register, Australia has a population of 25 million & has about 75 mediums on the register - easy to see why Australia relies on Canada for the experienced crew. The medium fleet is expanding in Oz so there’ll be more opportunities for Canadians with twin medium experience. 
On both sides of the world operators need to jump through visa hoops to get the drivers, but in both examples I don’t believe it is the visa holders driving down rates. The rates are accepted by the locals in both countries long before the visa holders get there.

 

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4 minutes ago, Heliduck said:


On both sides of the world operators need to jump through visa hoops to get the drivers, but in both examples I don’t believe it is the visa holders driving down rates. The rates are accepted by the locals in both countries long before the visa holders get there.

 

Canadian companies exploit our generous holiday working visa program.   Australia's holiday working visa is not as generous and you can only do short term work to support your holiday.  The problem in yukon is ozzies live in camp and work for cut rate wages, and oh ya mate i got all me time flying around the chaz wazzer in me mates squirrel.   

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15 minutes ago, robottxt said:

Canadian companies exploit our generous holiday working visa program.   Australia's holiday working visa is not as generous and you can only do short term work to support your holiday.  The problem in yukon is ozzies live in camp and work for cut rate wages, and oh ya mate i got all me time flying around the chaz wazzer in me mates squirrel.   

Can you elaborate?  Are you saying Canada has a generous holiday working visa?

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22 hours ago, tipspeed said:

The issue I have with them posting in Bladeslapper is they aren’t posting adds on Vertical. Not looking for someone from the Canadian market I guess. 

That is a valid concern.  Perhaps there are incentives for a company hiring Australians?  

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On 3/17/2022 at 12:09 AM, CM119 said:

That is a valid concern.  Perhaps there are incentives for a company hiring Australians?  

Yeah the incentive is that most don't have families here in Canada so they will work 365 days a year. The difference here in Canada is most come here as lower hour light/intermediate guys/girls that want VR experience and most Canadians in Oz are medium/heavy guys/girls that are actually highly experienced and really well paid with a half on half off schedule. Apples and oranges really.

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