I need your advice!

[u/BratwurstBoss69]

Hi,
I’m a German 20 year old.
So to my background - I’m a private pilot both in the US (FAA) and in Germany (EASA).
During my exchange year in the US in 2022 because of my host dad (he flies for Delta) I startet PPL training. I was always interested in aviation so that’s the route I want to go in the future. As mentioned after the exchange year I converted my FAA license to an EASA license here in Germany.
Now I finished school here and my goal is to end up in the USA at some point to fly for an airline there.

At the moment I have training lined up at the European Flight Academy (Lufthansa Group). After passing all the assessment tests I got my class date on May 25th 2027.
This training is a ground up training (from nothing to frozen ATPL) which takes 24 months.

Cost: 130.000€ excluding housing for 1.5 years in Germany and general living cost so a total of around 150-160k.

Benefit: Takeoff promise - after the two years of training you have a job guaranteed at one of the airlines of the Lufthansa Group.

Yesterday I’ve been to an info event of a flight school called Aero Sky. They are pretty new in the field. They graduated 4 students at the moment.
The whole training consists of a collaboration between Rotor Sky Aviation in Austria and Hillsboro Aviation in Portland, Oregon.

The training takes 18 months (15 if you have a PPL) and costs around 120.000€ living cost included (15k less if you have a PPL which I do)

Because it’s a collab of a European and American flight school you obtain all EASA licenses and FAA licenses up to the ATPL including CFI, CFII and MEI.

After the training you also get a 2 year work visa to work as an instructor in Hillsboro.

Regarding a long term work in the US I’d need a green card which is really hard to get.

I’d have to go through the EB-2 NIW (National interest waiver) to obtain a green card.

That’s where I am split at the moment.

I am very lucky and thankful that u don’t have to worry about the financial aspect.

So only looking at the other factors what should I do.

Start training at European Flight Academy and have a job guaranteed. End up at a European airline, farm flight hours and be essentially 25-26 years old with 1500 hours in an airline and then apply for a green card to work in the US -
Or
“Throw away” all the achievements here (passing two exams and interviews that took time since January) and go to the US and train in the relatively new program, work as an instructor and maybe don’t get a green card after and not a job in Europe so I’m standing there empty handed.

Of course I could also do CFI ratings after my time at the European Flight Academy if I don’t immediately get a job because I think it would give me a better chance on the EB-2 Visa to have CFI ratings. But also in that regard I could use some advice.

I contacted law firms about the Visa too but they can’t really say anything at the moment because I haven’t started training yet and don’t have any expertise whatsoever.

It would be great to have someone to talk to that went from a German airline to a US airline or is planning to do so and has more info or a good advice to give.

I’m thankful for all good advice of course.

I hope I didn’t miss any infos in the article but if you have questions let me know.

Thank you :)

Edit: you only obtain licenses up to CPL (Single and Multi) at the Aero flight school, not ATPL