I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this airline before, but there’s a company based in Indonesia that has hundreds of ex-pat pilots, and it might just be the most dangerous job in aviation…
Continue reading: The Fascinating & Dangerous Lives Of Indonesia’s Susi Air Pilots
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One sample search: Gorontalo to Bolaang Mongondow, a 45 minute flight, for $14. Mileage run!!
You should check out Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), they also fly to some of the remote areas in Indonesia.
Reminds me of the Bourdain episode in the Congo where he highlights the ex-pat pilots that do these cargo runs around the country in ancient Soviet aircraft.
To he fair you never heard of it because like most Americans you live in a bubble.
I've seen a lot of people conflate the terms "ex-pat" and "immigrant" recently, although in my eyes they are actually two different concepts. To be clear, I understand where many of the arguments come from and I have no issue with pointing out that there is no fundamental difference between someone from a poor country that moves abroad for work and someone from a wealthy country that moves abroad to do the same. However, "ex-pat" to me has always implied that one's presence in a foreign country has some generally defined time-period after which the person will return home or otherwise leave the country. In other words, they are not planning on settling in a country, whereas "immigrant" means to me that a person's presence in a country is meant to be more or less permanent. My mom moved from Japan in the 80's and has lived here for 40 or so years, she is clearly an immigrant. However a lot of the managers at the Japanese company where she works are on 2-3 year fixed terms and will return to Japan afterward. They would be clearly distinct to me as ex-pats. Since these pilots mostly seem to be in Indonesia temporarily to gain flight hours and will likely seek longer-term work elsewhere, I don't think there's anything wrong with referring to them as ex-pats in this case.
As was mentioned, Missionary Aviation Fellowship has been flying in that county in others for decades. I have a friend that was an MAF missionary pilot in the 1970s and following. JARS and others mission groups also have bush pilots. My former pastor was a linguistics missionary in Papua New Guinea and helped clear land to create landing strips for JARS planes in the 1980s.
Not just defined time period. If you move willingly, that’s immigration.
If you move because your company sends you for a task and will repatriate you back at the end of your assignment, that is expat assignments… so no, english teachers are not expats.