From an airline captain flying long haul today
Read this before you pay for flight training.
Everything I wish someone had told me before I paid for training. The real cost, the real timeline, the real job, and the reasons most people never make it. All of it, in one guide.
Costs less than half an hour of flight training.
Instant PDF • One payment • Written by a current airline captain
Everyone sells you the dream. Nobody sells you the truth.
Flight schools show you the uniform, the wings, the sunset over the wing. They do not show you the loan repayments, the second theory attempt, or the year and a half of silence after your licence.
Forums are worse. Half the advice comes from people who never made it, and the other half from people who made it in a different decade.
So people commit 80,000 to 150,000 of borrowed money based on an Instagram reel and a brochure. Some of them make it. Many do not, and it is rarely because they could not fly.
I finished my training in May 2014. I passed interviews. I did not fly a jet until January 2016. Twenty months of waiting, doubt and loan payments, and nobody had warned me. This guide is the warning I never got.
What is inside
Six parts. Training, the wait, the job, the struggles, then the plan. Nothing left out.
Each part reads in twenty minutes. Read Part 1 first, then the part that applies to you.
01
Before you spend a cent
Is this career actually for you, and how to find out before you sign anything.
- The class 1 medical and what fails people
- The honest money conversation
- The questions to ask yourself and your family
- Age, education and language, what really matters
02
The training
Every route, what it costs, and what the brochure leaves out.
- Modular vs integrated vs cadet programmes
- Real budgets for Europe, the Middle East and North America
- The theory exams, the failures, the retakes
- How to pick a school and the red flags
03
The wait
The part nobody prepares you for: licence in hand, no job.
- Why fresh pilots wait 1 to 3 years
- Hour building, instructing, and the traps
- Cadet and ab initio programmes and who gets picked
- How to stay current and stay sane
04
The job
What flying for an airline is really like, from day one to command.
- Type rating and line training
- Rosters, standby and time zones
- Pay progression, from first officer to captain
- Being away from home, relationships and family
05
The struggles
The things pilots talk about at the hotel bar and never on social media.
- Money pressure and the loan years
- Loneliness, self doubt and comparing yourself to others
- Medical and licence risk, and how to protect yourself
06
The plan
If you still want it after all that, here is how to do it properly.
- The 24 month timeline, quarter by quarter
- The interview, HR and technical
- Checklists: medical, documents, finances, English
- The mistakes that add years, and how to avoid every one
Read the first pages free
The opening of Part 3, exactly as it is in the book. If the voice is not for you, you will know in four minutes and it will have cost you nothing.
Part 3 · The wait
May 2014
I passed my final skills test in May 2014. Licence in hand. Frozen ATPL, multi engine, instrument rating. Three years of work, 70,000 euros of borrowed money, and the thing I had pictured since I was a child was now a document with my name on it.
I thought the hard part was over. I want to be very clear with you, because nobody was clear with me. The hard part was starting.
I began applying almost immediately. Not to a shortlist. To everything. Airlines, obviously. But also skydiving operations, because they hire low hour pilots to fly jumpers. Operators of the Cessna Caravan, a single engine turboprop used for cargo and small passenger runs. Anything in Asia or Africa that would put me in a cockpit. I lost count somewhere in the hundreds. Hundreds of applications, most of them into websites that never acknowledged receipt.
The reply rate was maybe one percent. Not one percent of interviews. One percent of any human response at all. The rest was silence.
I want to be factual about what that period is. You have a licence that cost more than a house deposit and no immediate way to use it. Your instrument rating has an expiry date, and keeping it valid costs money you are not yet earning. The logbook only grows if you pay for it to grow. None of that is a crisis, but it is a cost, and it is one I had not budgeted for.
That was the longest stretch of the whole road. Not a failed exam. Not a bad flight. The wait.
Who this is for
For
- Anyone thinking about training and not yet committed.
- Students choosing a school.
- Parents or partners paying for it.
- Licensed pilots stuck in the wait.
Not for
- People who only want to hear the good parts.
- Anyone expecting a shortcut around training.
Answer these before you buy
These are the questions I ask in a first coaching call. Answer them in writing, not in your head.
01
Why do you want this?
"I love flying" is not enough. Everyone who applies loves flying. What is it about this life, the schedule, the responsibility, the being away, that you actually want?
02
What are you giving up?
A salary, a career you are already building, time with people, a place you like living. Name it.
03
Can you fund the whole thing, including the wait?
Without destroying a relationship or a family if it goes wrong.
04
Have you passed a class 1 medical?
Before you pay anyone a deposit.
05
Can you commit two to three years of boring, consistent work with no guarantee at the end?
Not exciting work. Boring work. Gas laws, air law, the same circuit forty times.
If you can answer all five and you still want it, you are not being reckless. You are ready for this guide.
The questions I get every week
From my Instagram inbox, word for word. Every one of them is answered inside, with numbers, not opinions.
How much did your training really cost, all in?
Answered in Part 2
Modular or integrated, which one would you do again?
Answered in Part 2
How long did you wait for your first job after the licence?
Answered in Part 3
What does a first officer actually earn in the first year?
Answered in Part 4
I am 29 with a degree and a job. Is it too late?
Answered in Part 1
I was an average student. Can I still do it?
Answered in Part 1
Do I need a degree to get into an airline?
Answered in Part 1
How did you get an interview with no contacts in aviation?
Answered in Part 3
Is it worth taking a loan for this?
Answered in Part 5
What does a normal month look like for a long haul pilot?
Answered in Part 4
Ten of them here. The rest is inside.
Why listen to me
Airline captain, long haul, based in Dubai. I grew up in Belgium and trained there, at home, on a loan. My first airline job was in Casablanca, living with my grandmother because a second officer's pay did not cover rent. Every application I sent failed. The door opened through a person who knew a person, and I passed both interviews I was given. Now I coach pilots one to one through Your Aviation Wingman, and I have answered thousands of the same questions on Instagram. This guide is everything I tell them, in order, with nothing left out.
One guide. Every part of it.
$39
Thirty nine dollars, for a 100,000 dollar decision.
The guide.
Six parts, 77 pages, PDF for any device.
The checklists and the mistakes that add years.
A separate printable PDF.
The five questions worksheet.
The first coaching call questions I ask.
The pay progression chart.
One page reference, first year to command.
Read it tonight. Decide with numbers tomorrow.
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My guarantee
If you read Part 1 and find nothing you did not already know, email me within fourteen days and tell me what you expected to find. I read every one, and I will give you thirty minutes of coaching with me, free.
Not ready to buy? Start with the five questions.
The five questions from the first coaching call, sent to your inbox, free. Answer them in writing. Then decide.
Questions
Read it before you sign anything.
Some of this guide will put you off. Good. If a few pages of honesty can talk you out of it, the loan and the three years would have too, and they cost a lot more than $39.
If it puts you off, you have saved yourself years and a loan, and I mean that. Go and build something else with the same energy and you will do well.
If it does not, you now know more about what is coming than almost everyone who starts training this year. That alone puts you ahead.
Have a mission. Do the work in front of you. Do it again tomorrow. And you will get there.
Capt. Yassine