Becoming a Pilot & Airline Pilot Career FAQs

Being a "Commercial" pilot is more than just flying for an airline. A pilot must have a Commercial pilot certificate to get a job flying any size aircraft, with any type of business for hire or compensation. The minimum amount of flight time one must have to take the FAA Commercial Pilot flight test is 250 hours, unless you do your training via "Part 141" school then it's 190 hours.

The major airlines minimum pilot requirements, aka "minimums"/"mins", are around 2,500 hours and the regional carriers mins are about 1,000 hours (as of 10/'09) with at least 100 of that being flown in multi-engine aircraft (the minimum varies by airline). However, "competitive minimums", or what the average flight times of their new hires are, may be significantly above the minimums required to apply. During the latter part of 2007 and early 2008, the regional airlines were hurting for pilots and many lowered their minimum qualifications from what used to be the standard of 1,000 down to 500 hours. Two carriers even required only commercial, multi-engine, instrument pilots certificate with no hour minimums hours at all! It is unlikely that the regional airlines will hire with such low flight experience again due to the passage of the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009 in October, which makes an ATP pilot certificate a mandatory requirement to apply with an airline.

Due to the current economy, many major and regional airlines have put their hiring plans on hold and are furloughing pilots (lay offs). This means the regional pilots looking to move up the career ladder to captain or to a major will have to wait for the next hiring wave and won't be moving on soon.  This in turn means that the regionals will not be hiring those even with an ATP certificate until the industry rebounds from the current economic slump.

Getting Your Flight Experience

Obviously a pilot with a brand new commercial certificate does not meet any airlines hiring minimums. How do they get the flight time required? New commercial pilots can fly several kinds of jobs that will enable them to build up their flight experience to the airline minimums. The typical civilian career path is a time building job to get to a regional carrier, then after several years there they apply with a major carrier. Flying cargo is an option too, however most small cargo operators like Fed Ex feeder or Ameriflight minimums are slightly higher than the regional airlines. Legally, pilots must have 1,200 hours to fly freight for small cargo 'FAR Part 135 operators' (unless they are a VFR operator only and do not fly in clouds- a rarity). Large freight operators like UPS or Fed Ex are considered 'FAR Part 121' (just like the passenger airlines) and their hiring minimums are on par with the major airlines. Their competitive hiring mins are far and beyond their published mins to apply, and like major airline pilot positions, jobs at these companies are very sought after.

"Time building jobs" are:

Banner towing
Traffic watch
Skydive pilot
Pipeline patrol
Glider towing
Fish spotting
Flight Instruction (with the additional CFI certificate)

How do you find such jobs?

An aspiring commercial pilot would do well to network in the aviation community as they earned their ratings. Many employers will hire a face they know over a faceless resume. Chatting up pilots already doing these sorts of jobs provides a personal contact for the future. Banner tow, skydive and glider operators can be found in the phone book or online. This site provide some good advice for prospective skydive pilots- DiverDriver.com. Call your local radio station and ask for the contact information for their traffic watch operator. Seek such operators out with resume in hand. Even if they aren't hiring at the moment, you will be a familiar face if you check back every month or so and they may consider you at a future date. Often the flight school where a pilot does their flight training may hire them to teach for their school when they earn their Certified Flight Instructor/"CFI". (You need this additional rating to be able to teach student pilots.) This link also provides some ideas for building flight time. Once a pilot builds up the additional hours above the 250 they had when they got their commercial license and meet regional hiring mins, they can then start to apply.

To read about airline specific interview experiences, and what the applicants flight times were, visit this page-
AviationInterviews.com


Who is getting hired with the airlines?

Back in 2003, 68% of airline pilots hired were from a civilian background according to Aviation Information Resources (aka AIR, Inc). This is a trend that will remain steady or increase over the next few years as fewer military pilots are available compared to decades past and the pool of qualified civilian pilots increases.

Additionally, "The age range for civilian new-hires at the major airlines spans from 27 to 42 years-old, with the average age being 34.6 years and 5,419 total hours and 40.0 years and 3,205 total hours for pilots with a military background. Of those civilian pilots interviewed at the majors, 30% have corrected vision, 90% have a four year degree or higher, 90% have an ATP and 80% an FE written.", according to Kit Darby, former United Airlines Captain and president of Darby Aviation Consulting.

Here is a .pdf file link on the hiring trends and statistics on the US airline industry, forcasted by Mr. Darby at the 33rd FAA Aviation Forecast Conference in March of 2008. While the current recession has certainly impacted his forecasted hiring numbers, it has a lot of other data that is very useful.

The National Transportation Safety Board held a 3 day symposium in May of 2010 on 'Professionalism in Aviation'. Topics on the agenda were major and regional hiring, future pilot training and the topic of a pilot shortage over the next decade. The sessions were recorded real time and are available at this NTSB link. The panelists were leaders from across in the industry and their presentations are worth listening to. The meat of the pilot recruitment topics start with Judy Tarver of FltOps.com at 1:53 into the video file. Even if you don't have time to sit and watch the full length of these sessions (there are some with power point presentations), they are worth a listen while you work on your computer or do other tasks. Some interesting figures presented by Ms. Tarver were that over the next decade, the FAA is forecasting the major airlines will need 42,000+ pilots. That is quite a figure considering that in 2010 there are only about 54,000 total active airline pilots, 18,700 of which are regional pilots, flying today. (Compare that to the 12,500 total active military pilots.) Between 2010-2025 the FAA forecasts 54,300 aircraft will be added to U.S. airline fleet and pilot attrition will be 139,000. If these projections hold true, such a 'pilot shortage' will be a serious concern for our transportation industry in the years to come.

A 25 page document on this topic by the AirLine Pilots Association is also worth a read. Get the .pdf - Producing a Professional Airline Pilot: Candidate Screening, Hiring, Training & Mentoring