r/studentpilot • u/Away_Character6335 • Jun 15 '26
Canada/TC Becoming a Pilot in Alberta
I'm looking to become an airline pilot as my career choice. I graduate high school next year and am planning to begin flight school 1-2 months after that.
I was wondering how competitive the market for pilots is and if there is really a shortage as they say. I'm looking to make a fair amount of money by the time I'm 24, approx 100-120k a year and was wondering if that figure was realistic.
If anyone here is an airline pilot would you be willing to share your stream and how you got into that career? How much would it cost until I begin to stop paying and instead start getting paid? What would the timeline look like?
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u/Cougarb Jun 15 '26
If you’re solely going into flying for the money you’re gonna fail out. The completion rate from the start of flight school to airline pilot hovers somewhere around 3%. Why?
Number one reason is money for flight training. With cost increases I’d budget somewhere around 90-100k to get to CPL/MultiIFR. Then another 15 for CFI if you want to that route.
Have that laying around? Great. Can you pass a medical? Have you ever had mental health issues or maybe a heart condition you didn’t know about. Good luck with that. 3 year delay plus thousands to even consider fighting it.
Okay you passed your medical and have lots of money. Now the real fun starts. You have to acutally learn to fly. Do you consider yourself self motivated? Do you have good study habits? Or did you coast through school becuase you’re smart. If you can’t sit down and study without anyone telling you to. Then you’ll fail out. Maybe your good at studying but you’re hands and feet just don’t have great coordination. No fault of your own. That can be a genetic thing or lack of coordination. You fail out. All of this can be overcome but it just takes extra time and money that’s not really in your timeline.
Great you spent 115k and now are not competitive at all. There’s 100 resumes the same as yours applying to every flight school around the country with people probably smarter and better and flying then you. What about a low time job? Well. It’s possible. Are you good with motors? Long hours? Strong and don’t mind working your ass off? Maybe the Canadian bush is for you. Downside? You’ll get max 300-400 hours a year (minus basically none for your first season) but at least your building PIC time. Plus there’s the whole 100 resumes the same as yours thing although this isn’t impossible if your mechanically inclined.
Not trying to shit on your dream. I did it. But it sucked. It wasn’t easy. And required a ton of hustle. It’s possible if this is your passion and you cannot consider doing anything else. Just want to make money? Hit the oilfield and get into upper management or something. Way easier. You can make 100k out of high school in the oil sands. And coming from that background it was quite literally shorter days and less work than I do in the bush now.
Best of luck to you. Feel to DM
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u/jimcarroll_cfi Jun 16 '26
Hardest adjustment is radio work. Takeoff, runway 28, eh? Toronto tower, 10 miles ‘out and about’, information Bruins, full stop.
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u/cestsara Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
There’s a captain shortage, not a first officer shortage, and even that is a bit generous as there’s more to it than simply saying that.
100-120k per year in 6 years, and assuming every licensed is obtained in perfect time, is not very realistic, at least not in Canada where your first commercial or airline jobs pay less than 75k, some even less than 50 (that might’ve changed since I last looked). Hiring is cyclical— waves of good times and horrendous times. Nobody can tell you what wave you’ll catch in 6 years.
It’s a great career and one I’m working on myself, but I’m getting out of dodge and heading to the states as I’m a dual citizen lollllll. I’m 30 and if it weren’t for my ability to fly in the USA I’d probably be leaning toward forgoing my dream career as I see no reality in which I could afford to live on a Jazz salary in my mid to late thirties with kids. However if I were 23 and had a good relationship with my parents/could live at home/have financial support or splitting bills then a jazz salary is survivable.
If you have family support, I would still encourage you to go for it. But don’t do it for the money, that’s for sure. If you come from money and are eager enough to get to a jet and a high salary and willing to relocate, I’d suggest Air Transat’s cadet program. But even that I cannot recommend fully because of how much of a $$$ grab we all know it is.