China: Airlines offering foreign pilots $300,000 tax free to fly for them

Chinese airlines are offering huge pay packages to tempt foreign pilots as demand for air travel skyrockets. Some carriers are advertising salaries of more than $300,000 a year — and they say they’ll cover the tax bill, too. “There’s not enough pilots in the world to fill the demand,” said Dave Ross, the CEO of Wasinc International, a firm that finds pilots for Chinese airlines. “This is why the pay keeps going higher.” China will need between 4,000 and 5,000 new airline pilots every year for the next two decades, analysts estimate. Chinese airlines are among the fastest growing on the planet — at home and abroad — and they’re the biggest buyers of jetliners from Airbus and Boeing. Training schools in China aren’t churning out enough pilots to keep up with the industry’s meteoric growth, and there’s an acute shortage of experienced captains. The airlines’ rich offers have attracted industry veterans from all around the globe.<br/>