Come to think of it, is the USA a major net exporter of airline-pilot talent? Coming only from personal observations, it sure seems like it's an exporter (I'm

Come to think of it, is the USA a major net exporter of airline-pilot talent? Coming only from personal observations, it sure seems like it's an exporter (I'm not sure about how major), but only to certain types of countries - specifically, prosperous non-European ones. Places where those pilots can live decent expatriate lifestyles: think China, Taiwan, Malaysia, UAE, Kuwait, etc. My experience is less varied on developing-world airlines, but I can't recall running into any Western pilots working for Kenya Airways or Royal Air Maroc (the two I have flown most recently). This makes sense, in some way - no matter what, Kenya Airways is unlikely to attract someone who spent a bunch of their time in Orlando to move to Nairobi, but with the right amount of money I could see those people moving to Shanghai for a few years to get some seniority and time in control of a larger plane than they would have if they had stayed with Continental. Interestingly, I "see" (hear) very few non-national Captains flying on Western European airlines. My theory is that all those countries have Air Forces of their own, and that their aviation sectors are small enough that they can rely on ex-military pilots for the majority of their piloting needs.