How to become an airline pilot
Five certificates and ratings, then 1,500 hours of flying, then an airline transport pilot certificate. Every step below carries the regulation that governs it and the price it costs at Van Nuys.
What are the actual steps to becoming an airline pilot?
Six of them. Get a first-class medical, earn a private pilot certificate, add an instrument rating, earn a commercial certificate, add a multi-engine class rating and a flight instructor rating, then fly until your logbook reaches the airline transport pilot minimum.
That list is the whole answer, and everything below it is detail about how long each step takes, what it costs and which regulation controls it. Nobody skips a step. The order is not a house style — each certificate is the legal prerequisite for training toward the next one, which 14 CFR 61.123 makes explicit when it requires you to hold a private pilot certificate before applying for a commercial one.
The step people get wrong is the first one. A first-class medical certificate is the requirement that can end this plan outright, and the only cheap moment to discover a disqualifying condition is before you have spent anything. Book the examination in your first month. We say this on every relevant page and we mean it literally.
The step people underestimate is the last one. Training gets you to roughly 250 hours. The unrestricted airline transport pilot certificate sits at 1,500. That gap is not training, it is work — and instructing is how most people close it, which is why a flight instructor rating is inside this school’s career track rather than treated as an optional extra.
A position, since this site takes one on every page: the single biggest determinant of whether you finish is how often you fly, not how clever you are. Two lessons a week is a five-year plan wearing the clothes of a two-year plan.
What does each step involve?
Six steps. Each has a named regulation, a rough duration at a full-time tempo, and a place in the price list.
Get a first-class medical certificate
14 CFR 61.23(a) makes a first-class medical the requirement for exercising airline transport pilot privileges as pilot in command. Get it before you buy training, not after. If you are 40 or older it is worth knowing that the first-class privileges on that certificate last six months rather than twelve, so you will repeat the examination more often than a younger pilot.
Earn a private pilot certificate
The age is 17, from 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. AOPA puts the national figure at 50 to 70 hours. The price here is $10,900 on Standard, $15,900 on Comprehensive or $22,500 on Premium.
Add an 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. There is a 250 nautical mile instrument cross-country in there too. $11,700.
Earn a commercial certificate
Age 18 under 14 CFR 61.123, and 250 logged hours under 14 CFR 61.129(a). Inside that number: 100 hours 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. At this certificate the flying becomes a job rather than a hobby.
Add a multi-engine class rating and a flight instructor rating
The class rating is short. 14 CFR 61.63(c) attaches no hour floor at all to an added class rating, so it is training to proficiency, an endorsement and a checkride. $5,100 in the Piper Seminole. The instructor rating under 14 CFR 61.183 asks for 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.
Fly to the airline transport pilot minimum
14 CFR 61.159(a) sets 1,500 total hours, containing 500 cross-country, 100 at night, 75 on instruments and 250 commanding an airplane. 14 CFR 61.160 lowers that total: 1,000 hours behind a qualifying bachelor’s degree, 1,250 behind a qualifying associate’s degree or a partial credit-hour route, and 750 for a former military pilot. This step is measured in years of flying, not months of training.
Why is there a gap between 250 hours and 1,500?
Because paid flying and airline flying sit behind two different certificates, and a thousand hours separate them. 14 CFR 121.436(a) requires an airline transport pilot certificate and a type rating for both front seats in a part 121 operation, so there is no way to enter the right seat early.
What each certificate lets you do
| Certificate | Regulation | Hours it needs | What it permits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private pilot | 14 CFR 61.109(a) | 40 minimum | Carry passengers, not for compensation |
| Instrument rating | 14 CFR 61.65(d) | 40 instrument hours | File and fly in instrument conditions |
| Commercial pilot | 14 CFR 61.129(a) | 250 total | Paid flying, within limits |
| Flight instructor | 14 CFR 61.183 | 15 PIC in category and class | Be paid to teach, and build hours doing it |
| Restricted ATP | 14 CFR 61.160 | 750, 1,000 or 1,250 | Serve in a part 121 crew, with the 14 CFR 61.167 limitation |
| Airline transport pilot | 14 CFR 61.159(a) | 1,500 total | Command a part 121 airliner |
How do people actually build 1,500 hours?
By being paid to fly. Instructing is the most common route because it pays, it is available immediately after the instructor rating, and the hours it produces are the right kind.
Instructing
Most people close the gap by teaching. You earn while you log, the flying is varied, and the hours are dual given, which counts toward the 1,500. It also makes you a better pilot than any amount of solo time-building does, because explaining a manoeuvre forces you to actually understand it.
This is why the flight instructor rating sits inside the $89,000 track here rather than being sold as an afterthought. A career plan that stops at a commercial certificate has no mechanism for closing the largest gap in it.
The other routes
Instructing is not the only way and it is not right for everyone.
- Banner towing, pipeline patrol, aerial survey and traffic reporting — commercial work that accumulates hours quickly
- Part 135 charter and cargo, which usually wants more hours than a fresh commercial pilot has
- Skydive operations, which build a lot of time in a small number of months
- Buying your own aircraft and flying it, which is expensive per hour and produces the wrong kind of time
What the restricted route changes
14 CFR 61.160 reduces the total, and it is worth understanding precisely because the reduction is large. A qualifying bachelor’s degree with the required aviation coursework brings the floor to 1,000 hours. A qualifying associate’s degree, or between 30 and 59 of the required credit hours, brings it to 1,250. A former military pilot with an honourable discharge and the right records qualifies at 750.
Two things to be clear about. Those routes require the aviation coursework to have been completed through an approved Part 141 curriculum at an authorised institution, and this school does not run one. And 14 CFR 61.153 sets the minimum age at 21 for a restricted certificate against 23 for an unrestricted one. If a degree route is your plan, the institution is where you arrange it, not here.
What does the training half of this cost?
$89,000 as one program, or the individual rungs below. The hour-building that follows is paid work rather than a purchase.
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Step 2. 60 hours logged, which is close to where an ordinary student finishes.
- ✓55 hours single-engine
- ✓5 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓50 hours dual
- ✓10 hours ground
Instrument Rating
Step 3, and the prerequisite the ATP is built on.
- ✓14 CFR 61.65(d) experience
- ✓Redbird MCX for scan and procedure
- ✓250 nm instrument cross-country
Multi-Engine Add-On
Step 5a. Short, because no hour minimum attaches to an added class rating.
- ✓Flown in the Piper Seminole
- ✓Endorsement plus a checkride
- ✓Private or commercial add-on
Airline Career Track
Steps 2 to 5 as one program, ending with a commercial certificate and an instructor rating.
- ✓Every rung, one price
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
What can you verify about the school teaching this sequence?
This business is new. It has no reviews and it is not going to display anyone else’s, so here are five things a stranger can check instead.
Airframes we own outright
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. The Arrow II is what makes the complex training in 14 CFR 61.129(a) possible on our own ramp.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors
Each 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.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23A Redbird MCX session
Full-motion and fully enclosed. It is where the instrument scan gets cheap, and it is a poor place to learn a landing, which is why we do not use it for one.
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, requiring four daylight hours clear of a 3,000 ft ceiling and five statute miles.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetProgram prices withheld
None. Every figure is on the pricing page, without ranges and without a quote gate.
Published in fullWhat this page is not telling 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.
Completing the sequence on this page does not produce a job. It produces certificates and a logbook. Hiring minimums, seniority and pay belong to carriers, and any training provider implying it controls them is describing something it does not.
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.
Common questions about becoming an airline pilot
An unrestricted airline transport pilot certificate requires twenty-three years of age; a restricted one requires twenty-one. Both figures come from 14 CFR 61.153. Training starts far earlier than that. 14 CFR 61.103 sets seventeen as the age for a private certificate. 14 CFR 61.123 sets eighteen for a commercial one.
No regulation requires one. A degree matters in exactly one mechanical way. Under 14 CFR 61.160, a qualifying bachelor’s degree drops the airline transport pilot hour requirement to 1,000 and a qualifying associate’s degree drops it to 1,250, measured against a floor of 1,500 hours that 14 CFR 61.159(a) otherwise sets. That reduction depends on the institution being authorised and the aviation coursework being completed through an approved Part 141 curriculum.
1,500 total hours as a pilot for an unrestricted certificate under 14 CFR 61.159(a), containing 500 cross-country, 100 at night, 75 on instruments and 250 as pilot in command of an airplane. The restricted routes in 14 CFR 61.160 sit at 750, 1,000 or 1,250 depending on how you qualify.
First class. 14 CFR 61.23(a) requires it for exercising airline transport pilot privileges as pilot in command. Its duration for those privileges is twelve months, dropping to six months once you have turned 40, so the examination becomes an annual or twice-yearly fixture of the job.
Yes, and that is the normal case here. The sequence starts with somebody who has never touched a control, and the assessment flight at $229 exists specifically so you can test the assumption before spending anything.
A commercial pilot certificate, governed by 14 CFR 61.129, permits paid flying. An airline transport pilot certificate is a separate and later document, governed by 14 CFR 61.159, with far higher hour requirements, and 14 CFR 121.436(a) requires it for both crew seats in a scheduled airline operation. Every airline pilot holds a commercial certificate first.
Roughly twelve to eighteen months of training at a full-time tempo, then however long the hour-building takes — commonly a year to two years of instructing. Part-time, the training half alone stretches to several years. The page on how long it takes to become an airline pilot breaks the clock down month by month.
The private pilot certificate, and there is no alternative: 14 CFR 61.123 requires you to hold one before applying for a commercial certificate. What is genuinely optional is the order of the multi-engine class rating relative to the commercial certificate, and we take it after.
Not legally. Practically, it is the mechanism most people use to cross the gap from 250 hours to 1,500 while drawing a wage, which is why it sits inside the career track here rather than being sold as an extra. If you have another way to build a thousand hours, take it.
Book a first-class medical examination and book an assessment flight. The medical tells you whether the plan is possible; the hour tells you whether you want it. Both are cheap relative to what follows, and doing them in either order beats doing neither.
The rest of the career track
Test the assumption before you buy the plan
An hour in the aircraft answers a question no page can: whether you take instruction well and enjoy the work when it is actually happening. Book it, fly it, and read the instructor's written assessment. Enroll inside a day and the $229 comes back off your program.
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 →