Fly people across the country for a living. The training bill is big and the seniority ladder is slow.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $108,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $50,000 at the lower end to about $220,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 7 years after high school, on the usual route.
$81,000 to $128,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$108,000
Lower end
$50,000
Upper end
$220,000
Job Bank's national median is $52 an hour, about $108,000 a year full time. Airline pay is really set by seniority and aircraft size, not by an hourly rate. A first officer at a regional airline starts near the bottom, a captain on a wide-body jet sits near the top.
$63.00 an hour
The median in Ontario, the highest in Canada
British Columbia ($57.69) and New Brunswick ($55.29) follow, and the Northwest Territories is lowest at $41.43. Before an airline job, most new pilots spend one to two years building hours as instructors or bush and freight pilots, often for low pay.
Bigger aircraft, bigger pay
Pay jumps when you move to a larger aircraft or into the captain's seat
Moves are decided by your place on the airline's seniority list, and none of your seniority transfers if you change airlines.
Roughly, all in
$81,000 to $128,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is training straight through at an independent flight school to a commercial licence with instrument and multi engine ratings, plus the yearly Category 1 medical and the Transport Canada written exams and licence fees. The high end adds a college aviation program at about $9,000 a year on top of the flight fees. Almost all of this is borrowed against a job you do not have yet, so the interest, which is not counted here, is a real part of the picture. Some airlines now run cadet programs that cover part of the cost in exchange for a work commitment.
Most of this is a bank loan taken against a job you do not have yet. Some airlines now run cadet programs that help with the cost in exchange for a work commitment.
Low-cost or no-cost flights
Standby travel for you and usually your family.
Pension
The major airlines run large pension plans.
Meal money away from base
A daily allowance, not taxed, for every hour you are away.
Hotels paid on layovers
The airline books and pays for your room on overnight trips.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You buy the licence, then you buy the hours. There is no apprenticeship here.
Finish high school
Grade 12
Math, physics and English. Get a Transport Canada Category 1 medical exam before you spend money on training, because a condition you did not know about can disqualify you.
Private pilot licence
6 to 12 months
The first licence. Minimum age 17. Ground school plus flight training at a flight school or a college aviation program.
Commercial pilot licence
1 to 2 years
Minimum age 18 and at least 200 hours of flight time in aeroplanes, of which 100 must be as pilot in command. Add an instrument rating and a multi-engine rating to be hireable.
Build hours
1 to 3 years
Instruct, fly floatplanes, fly freight or fly small charters. Regional airlines usually want somewhere between 500 and 1,500 hours.
Airline transport pilot licence
After the hours
Minimum age 21 and more than 1,500 hours. This is the licence you need to captain an airliner.
Math
Navigation, weight and balance, and fuel planning are arithmetic under time pressure.
Physics
Lift, drag and weather make more sense if you have seen the physics.
English
Radio calls and checklists are in English worldwide.
French
Bilingual pilots have an edge at airlines flying in and out of Quebec.
Transport Canada issues every pilot licence in Canada and sets the flight time, exam and medical standards in the Canadian Aviation Regulations. One national licence works in every province. Moving your licence to another country means extra exams and validations. You must hold a valid Category 1 medical certificate at all times: lose the medical, lose the job.
Sault College, Ontario
A three-year advanced diploma in aviation technology, flight, that takes you to a commercial licence.
Seneca Polytechnic, Ontario
A degree program approved by Transport Canada as integrated airline pilot training.
Mount Royal University, Alberta
A two-year aviation diploma pairing flight training with business courses.
Confederation College, Ontario
Aviation flight management in Thunder Bay, aimed at finishing the flight training in under two years.
Private flight schools
Cheaper up front and more flexible, but no diploma and often no student loan eligibility.
In Quebec the main route is a 3 year public college diploma at the CQFA (Centre québécois de formation aéronautique, the Quebec aviation school), where the government pays for your flight hours.
Secondary V with physics
Age 16 or 17
You need a DES (Secondary School Diploma) and Secondary V physics. Get a Transport Canada Category 1 medical early, because the CQFA requires one.
Get selected
One exam date a year
Open only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents living in Quebec. Written aptitude, aviation and language tests, interviews and a medical. Apply through the SRASL (the Saguenay college admissions service).
DEC (Diploma of College Studies) in Aircraft Piloting Techniques (280.F0)
3 years
Full time at the Saint-Honoré airport near Chicoutimi, taught in French. The multi-engine route includes 225 flight hours, 180 single-engine and 45 multi-engine.
Graduate with your licences
End of year 3
A commercial pilot licence with night and multi-engine qualifications and an instrument rating, which is what a first employer looks for.
Build hours
Varies
As in the rest of Canada: instructing, bush, charter or freight flying until a regional airline hires you.
Airline transport pilot licence
After the hours
Federal and the same everywhere: minimum age 21 and more than 1,500 hours.
The CQFA sets its number of places each year by its aircraft and staff, so admission is competitive.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Instrument rating
Flying in cloud. No airline will hire you without it.
Multi-engine rating
Required for almost every airline aircraft.
Flight instructor rating
The most common way Canadian pilots build their first 500 hours, and you get paid to do it.
Type rating
Training on one specific aircraft type. Airlines usually pay for this when they hire you.
Float and bush flying
Northern operators hire low-time pilots and the flying is hands-on.
A second language
French for eastern Canada, and any language helps on international routes.
Mechanical knowledge
Bush and charter operators like pilots who can help look after the aircraft.
A clean record and a passport
You need to clear security checks and enter every country the airline flies to.
Not every commercial pilot works at an airline. Air ambulance, aerial survey, water bombers on forest fires, cargo, corporate jets and northern charter all hire. Pay and lifestyle vary a lot: corporate flying pays well but the days are unpredictable, while water bomber work is seasonal and intense. Many pilots spend years in these jobs and never go to an airline at all.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A four-day trip is common. Report an hour before the first flight, check the weather, fuel and flight plan with the other pilot, then fly two to five legs. Between flights you sit in the cockpit doing paperwork and eating airport food. You sleep in a hotel in another city, then do it again. Long-haul is the opposite: one long flight, a couple of days in a foreign city, then a long flight home. Your schedule changes every month.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank reports that 38% of Canada's 19,200 airline pilots were 50 or older in 2023, with a median retirement age of 63. It projects a strong risk of a pilot shortage through 2033.
Which pilot is captain is decided almost entirely by seniority at that airline. Change companies and you start at the bottom of the list again, no matter how many hours you have.
For a commercial licence, Transport Canada must find you medically fit before you can even write the exams or take the flight test. You pay the aviation doctor yourself.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Air first, then the rest of the field. See every career in transport.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.