How to Become an Airline Pilot Birmingham AL

Steps

1. Look around your local area for a good flight school and flight instructor to begin working on your private pilot certificate. The FAA minimum flight time is 40 hours, but the average is around 60.
2. Get a First Class medical certificate from a Federal Aviation Administration medical examiner. It is better to apply for a first class medical the first time you apply for a medical certificate to be sure you will qualify for one before you have invested too much time and money into your new career choice.
3. Consider going to school to finish your degree if you haven't already. Virtually every flying job requires an associate degree and almost every airline pilot job requires a bachelors degree. However, your degree doesn't have to be aviation related. Any college degree will do. Airline pilot training is intense and expensive. A college degree helps to demonstrate to the airline that you will be capable of completing their education program.
4. After you earn your private pilot license, begin working on your instrument rating and commercial certificate. An instrument rating requires 50 hours of cross country Pilot-in-Command (PIC) and 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument conditions. For the commercial certificate, you will need 250 hours total time, 100 hours PIC, 50 hours cross country, and 10 hours of dual instruction in a complex aircraft.
5. Complete your certified flight instructor (CFI) rating and begin working at your flight school. Some flight schools offer you flight hours in exchange for instructing for them. This can be useful when you go on to your multi-engine rating.
6. Work on your multi-engine, certified flight instructor instrument (CFII), and multi-engine instructor (MEI) ratings.
7. With the proper ratings and as little as 500-1000 hours of flight time, you could get hired by any number of REGIONAL airlines flying turboprop and regional-jet aircraft. None of which require an ATP. You will earn your ATP when you upgrade to captain at a REGIONAL airline.
   • To work for a major airline, you will need to have your ATP license. Major airlines typically require at least 3,000 hours total flight time including at least 1,500 hours multi-engine, and at least 1000 hours as pilot in command (PIC) of turbine (jet) powered aircraft, preferably in scheduled airline flying. These numbers are estimates and will vary depending on the airline. Also, while these may be the minimums required to apply for a job at a major airline, they may be far from the actual competitive numbers and the actual experience of successful applicants may be considerably higher than the minimums.

Tips

• Be sure to do your research before jumping into your flight training. Use a reliable source for this information and not marketing from flight schools. Online forums, asking pilots, visiting flight schools to ask about the experience of their instructors are a good way to find out about a school's reputation. Be sure to ask current students what they think of their training privately where they feel free to talk. Be sure to ask if they are flying as much/often as they had originally planned and if not, why not.
• Don't be afraid to look for an instructor at a local airport rather than a big school. While a big school has a lot of advantages, remember that their instructors are generally low-time recent grads from their program. On the other hand, you might find a retired airline captain, military aviator, or maybe just a life-long flying enthusiast with a lifetime of real-world flying experience to share with you instructing at a smaller, local airport.
• Think about joining a Flying/Gliding Club near you to build up your hours.
• A great place to start building time and experience is flying for a sub-regional cargo operator. Flying medical specimens and bank checks. Logging as much as 1,000 hours of flying per year in the process, which makes you a much more attractive pilot candidate for the passenger REGIONAL carriers. With many of the cargo operations, you'll fly every day and be home every night.
• Although flying is a fun job, don't expect to make a lot of money at first. Average starting pay is $19,000 for cargo and REGIONAL airlines. When you upgrade to captain at a REGIONAL airline, you can expect to start out on average at $50,000 per year. Expect to take a substantial paycut if you decide to move over to a major airline once you have the requirements to apply there.After getting more seniority in a major or international airline, you could make up to $200,000 dollars or more.
• As an airline pilot, you will start as a first officer and work your way to captain.
• Having the opportunity to enter training for upgrade from First Officer to Captain at an airline is based on seniority with the company rather than total flight time or experience. If you are unsuccessful in completing the airline's command training, you will be sent back to the right seat as a first officer, or your employment terminated, depending on the airline's policy. At many airlines you have a specific number of attempts allowed to attain captain, after which your employment may be terminated.
• Join the military. Military pilots often become airline pilots after they retire. While it might not cost you any actual money to train this way, it will take a lot of pre-planning and hard work during your college years to make you a viable candidate for a pilot slot in the military. Check with a military recruiter before you enter college, and during college, so you can be sure your college experience gives you exactly what you will need. Don't wait until the end of your senior year and, out of job options, decide to throw your name in the hat for pilot training. You will not be a military pilot this way. Additionally, you will make a substantial commitment to the military and your country to enter pilot training, such as engaging in combat, and the fact that time spent in the military will delay your entry into the airline industry--costing you seniority.
• Also, a high "wanting" to be a pilot will help you. Believe that you will become a pilot and you will.

Warnings

• Most of the steps and tips on this page apply primarily to people eligible to work in the USA and planning to train, fly, and become an airline pilot in the USA. While some of them may be applicable to other countries and job markets, it is best to ask for more advice in your home country about becoming an airline pilot.
• You will have long absences from home and family. You will never be able to stop that. No matter what is going wrong at home, you will be going back into the sky.
• Knowing you're responsible for your cargo can be stressful.
• Your career will always depend on your maintaining your medical certificate.
• You will always be taking written exams, oral exams, and checkrides multiple times in a year for the rest of your career. Yes, you will still be performing stalls and steep turns on checkrides as a 747 captain. Failing these checks can be an end to your airline pilot career. Failure of any airline training or checking event becomes part of your permanent airman record which is required, by law, to follow you to any new employer for your entire career.
• Anytime you change jobs, by choice or because you've been laid off or your airline has gone out of business, you will be starting at the bottom again at your new airline in terms of your position, schedule, and pay, regardless of experience.

Sources and Citations

• AirlinePilotMentor.com
• Great Lakes Airlines careers
• Alaska Air/Horizon Air careers
• Frontier Airlines careers
• Jet Blue careers
• Southwest Airlines careers
• United Airlines careers
• American Airlines careers
• airlineinterviews.com

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