Issue 357: Big Bird

New hope or false dawn for the A380?

Are we, finally, in the grips of a pilot shortage? Given that the federal government has just added pilots to its new skilled worker visa there’s some evidence that we are.

I was surprised – although perhaps in this era of eternal outrage, I shouldn’t have been – at the strength of the reaction to the decision. The whole ‘foreigners taking Aussie jobs’ angle not only borders on xenophobia, but also neatly ignores the facts that a) foreign pilots could apply to work in Australia under the old 457 visa regime until as recently as last April, and b) one of the key reasons ‘foreign’ pilots are needed is because foreign airlines, from the Gulf to China, are recruiting Australian pilots to work overseas.