Brett Carter
Western Australia, 43, Airline Captain
Born in Melbourne as the second of four children, Brett has probably been to more cities than most people have had hot dinners thanks to his work as an international airline captain.
Travelling during his childhood due to his father’s role in the RAAF, the family lived in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory before Brett followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an air force cadet in his teens and winning a flying scholarship.
His passion soon became his profession when he started flying professionally around age 21, starting out in general aviation in Darwin before joining the coast watch in Broome, Western Australia, as a first officer on a Dash 8 aircraft.
At age 25, Brett landed a job with Cathay Pacific, moving to Hong Kong to fly large passenger aircraft. He spent two years as a second officer, progressing to first officer. After only nine years and aged 35, he became a captain for the company, flying Airbus A330.
This father-of-two now flies mainly short-haul routes, training new pilots. His destinations include most of North and South East Asia, the Maldives, Dubai and India. His regular long-haul routes on the A340 include Rome, Paris, London, Toronto and Johannesburg. With an average of 36 to 48 hours off in each city, his lifestyle has given Brett the opportunity to enhance his food knowledge by eating in some of the world’s best restaurants and sampling the local cuisine wherever he travels.
Admiring chefs like Ben O'Donoghue, Kylie Kwong, Adrian Richardson, Jamie Oliver, Marco Pierre White and Emeril Lagasse, Brett hopes MasterChef Australia will be the stepping stone he needs to help make his dream of opening a pub in country Victoria a reality.