Pilot career outlook
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 7 per cent employment growth for airline and commercial pilots between 2025 and 2035, with about 16,400 openings a year on average across the decade. Here is what that figure covers and what it does not.
What is the job outlook for pilots?
Employment of airline and commercial pilots is projected to grow 7 per cent from 2025 to 2035, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies as much faster than the average for all occupations. That is a projected increase of about 11,300 jobs on a 2025 base of 154,900.
The more useful figure in the same publication is openings rather than growth: about 16,400 a year on average over the decade. Openings and growth measure different things, and what separates them is the point. Most openings in any occupation come from people leaving it — retiring, moving into management, or losing a medical — rather than from new positions being created.
The Bureau attributes the projected growth to rising demand for air travel, particularly leisure travel. That is the whole of the stated reason, and this page is not going to add a forecast of its own on top of it. We do not have better information than the Bureau does, and pretending otherwise would be the sort of claim this site exists to avoid.
What the projection does not describe is hiring at any particular carrier, at any particular time, at any particular experience level. Airline hiring runs in cycles that are far shorter than a decade, and a ten-year projection smooths straight over them. A pilot finishing training in a hiring trough and one finishing in a boom face very different first years, and the projection says nothing about which you will meet.
Which produces the honest position. A projection is a reason to take the career seriously. It is no reason at all to skip the arithmetic on what training costs and how long it takes before you are eligible for any of those openings.
What exactly does the Bureau publish?
Four figures from the Occupational Outlook Handbook, each stated with the period it covers. Nothing on this page is our own projection.
Bureau of Labor Statistics projections
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 7 per cent | Projected employment growth, airline and commercial pilots | 2025–35 |
| About 16,400 | Projected openings a year, averaged across the decade | 2025–35 |
| 11,300 | Projected employment change in the occupation | 2025–35 |
| 154,900 | Employment in the occupation | 2025 |
Why do openings exceed growth by so much?
Because most openings replace people rather than adding positions. Roughly 16,400 openings a year against a projected net increase of 11,300 across the whole decade tells you that turnover, not expansion, is what puts most seats on the market.
The three sources of an opening
An occupation produces openings in three ways, and only one of them is growth.
- Retirement, which in this profession is structural rather than voluntary and therefore predictable in aggregate
- Occupational transfer, when a pilot moves into management, training or another field entirely
- Loss of medical certification, which removes a pilot from the occupation regardless of intent
- Net new positions, which is the 11,300 the projection describes
Why the medical belongs on this page
A career that can be ended by a medical examination is a career where the medical deserves attention at the beginning rather than the end. 14 CFR 61.23(a) requires a first-class medical certificate to exercise airline transport pilot privileges as pilot in command, and past your fortieth birthday that certificate carries those privileges for six months rather than twelve.
Get the examination done before you buy training. It is the one item on the whole plan that money and effort cannot fix, and it is also, quietly, one of the reasons the occupation generates openings at the rate it does.
What a decade-long projection cannot tell you
It cannot tell you when. Hiring at a carrier responds to fleet orders, retirements, route decisions and the economy on a timescale of quarters, and a projection averaged across ten years is silent about all of it. If you train in a downturn, the projection is still true and your first year is still harder.
It also cannot tell you at what experience level the openings sit. An opening is not the same as an entry-level opening, and reaching the 1,500 hours that 14 CFR 61.159(a) requires is what determines whether any of them are available to you at all.
What should you actually do with this projection?
Four things, in order. None of them is treating a percentage as a job offer.
Settle the medical first
Book an aviation medical examination before you spend on training. A first-class certificate tells you the career is open to you; discovering otherwise in month fourteen is the expensive version of the same information.
Work out the timeline honestly
Twelve to eighteen months of training at four to five flights a week, then one to two years of paid flying to reach the hour requirement. That is when you become eligible for the openings the projection counts, not on the day you enroll.
Model the low-earning stretch
The instructing years between a commercial certificate and 1,500 hours are real income and modest income, and they usually overlap with repaying training finance. That overlap is the part of the plan that fails, when a plan fails.
Then decide, with the arithmetic in front of you
$89,000 here for the training sequence, financing from $2,500 down, and every program figure published. A projection is context for that decision. It is not the decision.
What does becoming eligible cost?
The published training prices, so the outlay sits on the same page as the projection.
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Phase 1. 60 hours logged, and the phase where a medical problem would surface.
- ✓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
All five phases, ending at the instructor rating that closes the hour gap.
- ✓Every certificate on the route
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Multi-Engine Add-On
The class rating, flown in the Piper Seminole.
- ✓No hour floor under 14 CFR 61.63(c)
- ✓Endorsement plus a checkride
- ✓One to two weeks full-time
What can you check about the school itself?
The projections above belong to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These five belong to us, and a stranger can verify every one.
Airframes owned rather than brokered
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 · 61.23A standalone 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 this projection is not
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.
Every figure on this page comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook and describes an occupation, not an individual. It is not a forecast that you will be hired, a representation about any carrier, or a promise about the market you will graduate into. We publish no hiring forecast of our own.
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 the pilot job market
That phrase does not appear in the figures. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes is a projection of 7 per cent employment growth for airline and commercial pilots from 2025 to 2035, and about 16,400 openings a year averaged across the decade. Read the numbers rather than the word.
About 16,400 a year on average over the 2025 to 2035 decade, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Most of those replace pilots leaving the occupation rather than filling new positions; the projected net increase across the whole decade is 11,300.
7 per cent between 2025 and 2035, which the Bureau classifies as much faster than the average for all occupations. It attributes the growth to increasing demand for air travel, particularly leisure travel.
No. It describes an occupation over a decade and says nothing about any individual, any carrier or any particular year. Hiring moves in cycles far shorter than ten years, and a graduate meeting a trough faces a different market from one meeting a boom.
154,900 in the combined airline and commercial pilot occupation in 2025, per the Occupational Outlook Handbook. That count includes charter, corporate and instructional flying alongside scheduled airline work.
Three reasons: retirement, transfer into management or training roles, and loss of medical certification. The last of those is why this site pushes you to get a first-class medical examination before you spend anything on training.
Two to four years from your first lesson. Twelve to eighteen months of training at a full-time tempo, then one to two years of paid flying to reach the 1,500 hours in 14 CFR 61.159(a) or the reduced totals in 14 CFR 61.160.
No. There is no cadet program here, no pathway agreement and no conditional offer from any carrier. We publish the curriculum, the hours, the regulation behind each requirement and the price, and we make no claims about who gets hired.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook for airline and commercial pilots. Nothing on this page is our own projection, and where the Handbook is silent we say so rather than filling the gap.
Book an aviation medical examination and an hour in an aircraft. The first tells you whether the occupation is open to you at all; the second tells you whether you want it. Both are cheap relative to what follows.
The rest of the career picture
A ten-year projection cannot tell you whether you like the work
One hour in the aircraft can. You handle the controls, the instructor writes an honest read on how it went, and you decide with something concrete rather than a percentage. Enroll inside a day and the fee comes 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 →