The licence gets you into the conversation
Employers hiring a pilot look for a licence they can use in their operation, a medical of the class that operation needs, and ratings that are still valid. A CPL with an instrument rating and the airline-transport exams is the usual aeroplane package people finish training with. It is not an offer of work.
Your logbook has to match the record the school kept. An examiner and an employer will notice a gap between the two. A lapsed class rating or instrument rating means you cannot do the job until it is renewed, even if the licence card is still in your wallet. An instrument rating, for example, lasts one year at a time.
What employers add on top
An airline, a cargo operator, and a corporate department each publish their own minimum experience. That minimum is often higher than the hours the licence required. It is a hiring policy. It moves when they are short of pilots and when they are not. A school that quotes “airlines want this many hours” is quoting a market, not a regulation.
A first paid job is often instructing, aerial work, surveying, or freight, rather than the right-hand seat of a passenger jet. Those jobs are still real flying. They are not a required rung, and they are not a consolation prize the authority invented. They are simply where some operators hire people with less airline time.
Type ratings and bonds
If the job needs a type rating you do not hold, someone pays for the course. It might be the employer, you, or a lender attached to the offer. A bond is a promise to repay some of that cost if you leave early. The amount, the duration, and what counts as leaving are in the contract. This site does not publish a typical bond, because a typical bond would be an invented figure.
Ask for the training contract and the employment contract as two documents. Know who you repay if the course stops, and whether the job exists before the rating starts or only if you pass.
A short list before you say yes
- Which licence and which ratings does the operation legally need, and which of them do you hold today?
- Is the medical class current for that operation?
- Who pays for the type rating, and what do you owe if you do not finish or you leave?
- Is there a job at the end of the rating, in writing, or only a pool you might join?
- Does your logbook match the training record an employer will ask to see?
Sources
Checked on 17 October 2026. Rules are amended, so read the current text before you rely on a figure.
- EASA, Easy Access Rules for Aircrew (Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011), Part-FCL: https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/easy-access-rules/online-publications/easy-access-rules-aircrew-regulation-eu-no