Very interesting as I saw two expat pilots working Indian airliners this weekend. Flew Paramount Airways from MAA to IXM and captain's name was "Joe" and he definitely looked and sounded American, he was at least 40 years old. Then today MAA-BOM had a pilot (looking pretty senior) who was sitting with pax (en-route back home I guess) who looked and sounded North American, his carryon bag has the Air Canada symbol on it, so my guess was that he quit them and got something pretty senior with 9w.

I found both instances, the first more than the latter surprising given how cheap, good quality labor is (its rising but still cheap relatively) in India...

Any ideas/experiences? I've never seen this in all of my visits/flights in India.

PS: By "North American" and "American" I am referring to individuals being mentioned as caucasian in race...

I am an expat pilot living in Hong Kong (origin. Canada)

There are tens of thousands of expat pilots in Asia/India.

Hm, point well taken. I was playing with the idea of throwing this (see below) in my original post, and should have, but didn't.

In my experience most pilots on CX and KZ are expats (seen and heard) which I can see since HK isn't exactly huge. I've seen plenty of expat pilots in SE Asia too (not as many, but enough), as well as with Emirates (no real other MENA experience) but never in India in all my travels/airport visits etc. hence the surprise, especially one being a very local (where I have had nothing but good experiences) carrier.

I was just wondering if some were leaving US carriers for something better (similar pay/higher status in a much cheaper country), given the issues faced by many in the US today. Canada I am not as certain.

FYI: I'm of Indian origin and go back to visit family about once a year which results in a few flights (depending upon length of stay). So I'm far from a frequent flier in India.

Most of the Indian domestic carriers have south american and west african pilots, especially on short haul milk runs (ATR flights especially seem to have lots of nigerian pilots)

Trained and type rated pilots are rather rarer than software programmers or call center workers, I guess.

There have been several reports of shortage of pilots in India for several years. About two years ago many ex-pat pilots from FSU were let go because of their poor command of English.

I don't know how many pilots from North America are working for airlines from India. I did suggest my brother-in-law, that could be an option for him when he retires from the U.S. Air Force if he had trouble finding a job with a U.S. airline.

Thanks for the insight. Obviously I was way off base and uninformed, or I just don't fly enough domestically in India.

When flying Jet up to DEL recently, saw 2 pilots (subsequently found out that they were non-revving) milling around on the tarmac, down near 1L, made a comment about the landing (wasn't very good - they are reverting back to their old so-called "safe" method) and found out that one of them was a Swede (young), who was flying up to DEL to take the test for his certification to fly in India...

Asked him why he wasn't flying for SK, he said that there are too many senior pilots flying for them. (SK)

My last Jet Airways flight (in January, BLR to DEL) I didn't see the pilot but from the in-flight announcements he had a lovely lilt to his voice that sounded African. I think I remember reading somewhere that due to the big travel boom there's a scarcity of pilots in India.

I have seen & heard expats on Deccan as well as on Jet. I also had a woman PIC in one of the domestic flights in the BOM-DEL route.

9W has at least one (if not two) all women crews (woman PIC, FO and cabin crew)