I am asking on behalf of an international student from Mexico. He would be starting from the bottom. He has no experience in flying, no hours, and no education in aeronautics. He has completed some college, but not much. He is looking to go to ATP once he saves the tuition amount. We were informed that you cannot work as a pilot if you are not a U.S. Citizen. However, can you work as a trainer for ATP if you are not a U.S. Citizen? What would be his other options if he completed the ATP program? Is it worth it for an international student who is not a U.S. Citizen to attend this program and pay a lot of money for this school if he cannot work in the U.S.? What would his other options be?
Working as an instructor for ATP is no different than getting paid to fly for any other US-based company. International students can receive training, but they cannot work as pilots in the US without US citizenship or Permanent Residency. The simplest thing to do is to receive flight training at a local flight school in Mexico. Otherwise, an international student could receive their training in the US, but then they would have to convert their licenses to be allowed to work as a pilot in the country they hold citizenship in, Mexico in this case. I am not familiar with Mexico’s license conversion process.
To work as a pilot in the US, a person needs to be either a US citizen or US permanent legal resident. This applies to everything from being an airline pilot to flight instructing.
I am not familiar with flight training in Mexico, I would recommend that your student contact resources in Mexico and ask what the best path is.
Thank you. - Is this the case for every country? You need to be a citizen in that country in order to work as a pilot? For example, if he received his training from ATP and then looked for a job in Europe or another territory (where he is not a citizen), could that work?
Every country has their own rules, you would need to check with each individual country to see. I will say that generally speaking, Europe is not very friendly to foreigners flying their airplanes, contrary to the image that they like to put forward.
I would encourage your friend to do this research himself and not rely on you to do it, these are major life decisions and we often find that when somebody else plays go-between, the message often gets garbled in transmission.
Honestly, I don’t know. I’m sure each country has its own rules. You’d have to contact the aviation authorities of that country for specifics. We are all US-based pilots. Our knowledge is limited on this subject because each country’s aviation regulations are different. Maybe someone else can chime in, but you’d be better off contacting the aviation authorities of whichever country you (or your acquaintance) wants to fly commercially in.