Pilot hiring reports
Every month, what the operators WingJobs scans were actually asking for: how many vacancies were open, the hours they required, and how many took pilots without the type rating. Figures are measured from the ads, never estimated — free to quote, with a link.
Latest — September 2026
- 722 pilot vacancies were open at 115 operators on 30 September 2026.
- Outside North America, the median minimum asked was 2,000 total hours, across the 106 ads that stated one.
- Among them, first officer ads asked a median of 1,500 hours; captain ads, 3,000.
- Outside North America, 39% of the ads that took a position on the type rating did not require one, listed it as desirable, or funded it.
- Airlines took pilots without the type rating in 55% of those ads; business aviation operators in 17%.
- 10 open vacancies asked 500 hours or less — the lowest, 200 hours at Luxaviation.
- 45 new adverts were published during the month and 56 closed.
Read the September 2026 report →
All reports
| Report | Open at month end | Median hours (international) | New adverts |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 722 | 2,000 h | 45 |
Quote these figures freely — just link to the report. Download every month in one CSV (CC BY 4.0).
How the figures are measured
Each report covers a closed month, so its figures do not move once published. A vacancy counts as open at the end of the month if a scan found it before the month ended and again after. Hours are the minimum total flight time stated in the ad; an ad that states none is left out of the medians rather than guessed. The United States and Canada are reported apart: they need their own licence and the right to work there, and their hundreds of helicopter air-ambulance bases would otherwise drown every other figure.
When a new operator is added, its open vacancies enter the database on the day of the first scan. Those are counted as coverage, not as new adverts — otherwise every batch of new operators would read as a hiring boom.