Airline pilot requirements
Age 23, a first-class medical certificate, 1,500 logged hours, and a commercial certificate carrying an instrument rating. Each of those comes from a numbered regulation, and each one is set out below with the exact figure it carries.
What are the requirements to be an airline pilot?
Four things, and they are cumulative. Be 23. Hold a first-class medical. Hold a commercial pilot certificate that carries an instrument rating. Log 1,500 hours.
Those four come from three regulations. 14 CFR 61.153 carries the age and the certificate prerequisite. 14 CFR 61.159(a) carries the hours. 14 CFR 61.23(a) carries the medical. Everything else on this page is detail about how each of those is actually satisfied.
There is a fifth requirement that most summaries leave out, and it is the one that decides where you can work. Both front seats in a part 121 airline operation need an ATP certificate and a type rating, which is what 14 CFR 121.436(a) says. There is no early entry through the right-hand seat, which is why the hour requirement dominates every career plan.
The requirement that stops people is the medical, and it stops them at the beginning or not at all. Book that examination before you buy a single lesson. Everything else on this list yields to money and effort. That one does not.
The requirement that takes the longest is the hours, and it is not close. Training produces roughly 250 of the 1,500. The remaining 1,250 are earned, usually by instructing, and that is a job rather than a course.
What does each requirement actually say?
Six rows, each with the regulation that governs it. Where a figure has a lower alternative, both are shown.
The requirements, with citations
| Requirement | The rule | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum age | 14 CFR 61.153(a) | 23 years for an airline transport pilot certificate issued under 14 CFR 61.159; 21 years for one issued under 14 CFR 61.160. |
| Certificate held | 14 CFR 61.153(d) | A part 61 commercial pilot certificate carrying an instrument rating, or one of the military and foreign-licence equivalents the paragraph names. |
| Medical certificate | 14 CFR 61.23(a) | First class, to exercise airline transport pilot privileges as pilot in command. Its duration for those privileges is twelve months, or six once you have turned 40. |
| Flight hours | 14 CFR 61.159(a) | 1,500 total. Inside it: 500 hours of cross-country, 100 at night, 75 on instruments, and 250 spent commanding an airplane. |
| Reduced hours | 14 CFR 61.160 | 1,000 with a qualifying bachelor’s degree, 1,250 with a qualifying associate’s degree or partial credit, 750 for a former military pilot. Cross-country drops to 200 hours. |
| Airline crew seat | 14 CFR 121.436(a) | An airline transport pilot certificate and a type rating for both pilot seats; a further 1,000 hours in part 121 operations before serving as pilot in command. |
What does a first-class medical certificate require?
Distant acuity of 20/20 per eye, corrected or not; near acuity of 20/40 measured sixteen inches out; normal fields of vision. Those are the eye standards, and 14 CFR 67.103 is where they are written down.
The vision standards
Four paragraphs of 14 CFR 67.103 carry them. Paragraph (a) fixes distant acuity at 20/20 per eye, and it explicitly permits corrective lenses, so spectacles have never been disqualifying. Paragraph (b) fixes near acuity at 20/40 measured sixteen inches out, then adds a second measurement at thirty-two inches once you turn fifty. That thirty-two-inch check is the one that surprises people.
Paragraph (c) is about colour: you must be able to distinguish the ones an airman’s duties depend on. Paragraph (d) asks for normal fields of vision. The first class medical certificate page works through the whole examination rather than just the eyes.
Why you book it first
Because a disqualifying condition discovered in month one costs you an examination fee, and the same condition discovered in month fourteen costs you everything you have spent. The examination is conducted by an aviation medical examiner, and the special issuance process exists for conditions that are manageable rather than absolute.
This is the honest downside of the whole plan and it belongs near the top of the page rather than buried. A medical problem can end this career before it starts, and no school, program or price protects you from that.
What the certificate costs you in time
Under 14 CFR 61.23(a) a first-class medical is what ATP pilot-in-command privileges require. Past your fortieth birthday that certificate holds those privileges for six months, not twelve. That cadence becomes a permanent feature of the job rather than a one-off hurdle, and it is worth building into how you think about the career.
A second-class medical is what 14 CFR 61.23(a)(2) requires for exercising commercial pilot privileges, so the second-class standard is the one that governs your instructing years. Holding first class from the beginning simply means you already know the answer.
Which certificates come before the ATP?
Three, in a fixed order, because each is the prerequisite for the next. 14 CFR 61.153(d) requires the commercial certificate with its instrument rating before an airline transport pilot certificate can be issued at all.
Private pilot certificate
Seventeen years of age under 14 CFR 61.103. The aeronautical experience floor is 40 logged hours, from 14 CFR 61.109(a), and it breaks down as three hours of cross-country training, three at night with one leg past 100 nautical miles plus ten full-stop landings, three on instruments, three of test preparation, and ten flown solo. Priced here at $10,900 on Standard, $15,900 on Comprehensive, $22,500 on Premium.
Instrument rating
14 CFR 61.65(d) asks for 50 hours of cross-country as the pilot flying, ten of them in airplanes, plus forty hours under the hood or in cloud with fifteen of those forty delivered by an instrument instructor. A 250 nautical mile instrument cross-country sits inside that, flown on airways or an air traffic control routing, flying an instrument approach into each airport along it and using three different kinds of approach in the process. $11,700.
Commercial pilot certificate
Eighteen years of age under 14 CFR 61.123, and a private pilot certificate already in hand. The commercial certificate sits at 250 logged hours under 14 CFR 61.129(a). Inside that: 100 as pilot in command, 20 hours of training containing ten on instruments and ten flown in an airframe that is complex, turbine-powered or technically advanced, plus a 300 nautical mile cross-country whose furthest point is 250 nautical miles out.
Then, optionally but usually, an instructor rating
14 CFR 61.183 asks for eighteen years of age, a commercial or ATP certificate, an instrument rating, a pass on the fundamentals of instructing exam, and fifteen hours commanding the category and class you want to teach in. No regulation makes it a prerequisite for the airline transport pilot certificate. It is the mechanism most people use to get paid while the logbook fills, which is a different kind of necessity.
What do the prerequisite certificates cost here?
The three required documents, priced. The 1,500 hours that follow are earned rather than bought.
Comprehensive Private Pilot
The first required certificate. 60 hours logged.
- ✓55 hours single-engine
- ✓5 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓50 hours dual
- ✓10 hours ground
Instrument Rating
Required by 14 CFR 61.153(d) before an ATP can be issued.
- ✓14 CFR 61.65(d) experience
- ✓250 nm instrument cross-country
- ✓Redbird MCX for scan and procedure
Airline Career Track
Every required certificate plus the instructor rating that closes the hour gap.
- ✓Private, instrument, commercial, multi, instructor
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
What can you check about the school before enrolling?
Five verifiable things, offered instead of testimonials this business has not earned yet.
Airframes we own outright
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. Ours, maintained by us, on our own schedule, and none of them chartered in for an afternoon.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors on the roster
Every one of the eleven holds a commercial certificate or better, an instructor certificate on top of it, and a current medical. Your instructor signs as pilot in command on every flight, by law.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23One Redbird MCX session
Full-motion, fully enclosed and never scrubbed for weather. Cheap place to learn a procedure, poor place to learn a landing, and that is exactly how we spend it.
Two hours inside Standard and Premium, five inside ComprehensiveTraining-capable days a year
Counted from NOAA ASOS reports at Van Nuys over the twelve months ending 1 August 2026. A day scored only when four daylight hours cleared 3,000 ft of ceiling and five statute miles of visibility.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetProgram prices withheld
None. Every figure is on the pricing page, without ranges and without a quote gate. What you enroll at is what is printed.
Published in fullWhat meeting these requirements does and does not get you
Airline Pilot Flight School operates under 14 CFR part 61 from Van Nuys Airport. We are not an airline, we are not owned by one, and no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring relationship with any carrier exists here.
Satisfying every requirement on this page produces an airline transport pilot certificate. It does not produce an interview or a job offer. Carriers set their own hiring minimums above the regulatory ones, and those minimums move with the market.
We publish no pass rate, no graduate count and no placement figure, because this business has no record worth publishing and will not invent one. What is published instead is the curriculum, the hours, the regulation behind each requirement, and the price.
What people ask about airline pilot requirements
Twenty-three, under 14 CFR 61.153(a), for a certificate issued on the aeronautical experience in 14 CFR 61.159. Where 14 CFR 61.160 issues a restricted-privileges certificate instead, the age drops to twenty-one. Training itself starts at seventeen with the private pilot certificate.
1,500 total hours, with 500 of cross-country, 100 at night, 75 on instruments and 250 as pilot in command of an airplane. That breakdown is 14 CFR 61.159(a). Reduced routes under 14 CFR 61.160 sit at 750, 1,000 and 1,250 hours, and they also cut the cross-country component to 200 hours.
No. Distant acuity has to reach 20/20 in each eye under 14 CFR 67.103(a), and the paragraph expressly allows corrective lenses, so spectacles and contact lenses are fine. Near acuity has to reach 20/40 at a distance of sixteen inches, and once you turn fifty the same 20/40 standard is measured a second time at thirty-two inches.
It depends entirely on what it is, and neither question is answered by a website. 14 CFR 61.153(c) requires good moral character, and the medical standards in part 67 have a special issuance process for manageable conditions. Put the question to an aviation medical examiner before any money moves. That is precisely why this site keeps pushing the medical into month one.
Yes. Before an airline transport pilot certificate can be issued, 14 CFR 61.153(d) requires a commercial certificate that already carries an instrument rating. Not optional, and not deferrable to the end of the sequence.
It requires an airline transport pilot certificate not subject to the 14 CFR 61.167 limitation, plus a type rating for the aircraft, before you can serve as pilot in command in a part 121 operation — and 1,000 hours accumulated in part 121 or the equivalent operations it lists. A second in command needs the certificate and the type rating too.
Only through 14 CFR 61.160. A qualifying bachelor’s degree with the specified aviation coursework brings the total to 1,000 hours; a qualifying associate’s degree or between 30 and 59 of those credit hours brings it to 1,250. The coursework has to run through an approved Part 141 curriculum at an authorised institution, and this school does not operate one.
The hour requirement and the age, and one limitation. A restricted certificate is issued under 14 CFR 61.160 at 750, 1,000 or 1,250 hours and at twenty-one years of age, and carries the 14 CFR 61.167 limitation that keeps you out of the pilot-in-command seat in part 121 until the restriction is removed.
No, but get one anyway. A private pilot certificate is exercised on a third-class medical, which is what 14 CFR 61.23(a)(3) requires. Holding a first-class certificate from the start means you find out in month one whether the career is available to you at all.
At a full-time tempo the certificates take roughly twelve to eighteen months. Reaching 1,500 hours after that commonly takes another year or two of paid flying. The page on how long it takes to become an airline pilot sets the clock out phase by phase.
Where these requirements are explained further
The pillar
The airline pilot training programThe rest of this cluster
How to become an airline pilotHow long it takes to become an airline pilotWhat airline pilot training costsPilot certificates and ratings in orderThe requirements in depth
First class medical certificateThe 1500 hour ruleRestricted ATPInstrument ratingTwo appointments settle most of this
Book an aviation medical examination and book an hour in the aircraft. The first tells you whether the career is open to you; the second tells you whether you want it. Neither costs much relative to what follows, and doing both this month is the most useful thing you can do.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →