Becoming Pilot 2025 : Essential Qualities
👨🏻✈️Advice from a captain
Becoming an airline pilot is a dream come true. The lunar landscapes, the night flights in perfect silence over the Atlantic and the unlikely encounters in the sky will surely be reasons that attract you. But behind this fascinating image lies a demanding path, sometimes long and often strewn with obstacles. If you're prepared to grow, to fall sometimes, to get back up again, then this job can change your life. From my career path, my experiences and my flying hours, I have retained the human and mental qualities needed to practice this profession and to flourish in it. Indeed, even if the technical dimension is important, you will quickly learn that the human dimension is even more so.
🧠 Humility and Intellectual Honesty
"Humble. But objectively outstanding."
‘I don't know everything, I can't do everything, I need others’ (Quote from the film ‘Pilote’ for Air France): We quickly learn that pride has no place in a cockpit. Humility means recognising that we can make mistakes, that we don't know everything, and that others can enrich us. It's a protective quality. It will enable you to grow quickly, work better as part of a team and, above all, fly with peace of mind. Whenever you're too sure of yourself: the plane, unexpected weather, a simulator session that's more difficult than expected, these are the things that will bring you back down to earth.
💪 Courage, perseverance, and adversity
There will be difficult days: failed competitions, financial problems, sleepless nights revising the weather forecast. The cockpit doesn't reward those who shine brightest on paper, but those who stick it out. Courage is also about considering failures and Plan B for your career, and accepting with humility the day when this is no longer the best path for you. What's more, there are few professions where you will be checked so regularly: simulators, medical check-ups, updating of procedures, and it is with adversity and motivation that you will have to anticipate this.
‘I'm wondering whether I should become a pilot-influencer or an influencer-pilot.’
🧭 Leadership
Airlines are recruiting future flight captains. Although recruitment starts with a pilot officer position, your leadership qualities will still be observed. Being a leader isn't about imposing, it's about guiding. Creating a climate of trust, taking the right decisions, even when they're unpopular. Respect doesn't come with stripes, it's earned by example. There's nothing more gratifying than to feel that your crew is united, confident, efficient... and serene. Extract from the B17 flight manual in the 1940s : "Be friendly, understanding, but firm. Know your job... By the way you perform your daily duties, impress upon the crew that you do know your job."
✨ Confidence: in yourself, in the crew, in the plane
‘you'll find out all about my yoga lessons and quinoa salads’.
It's confidence in yourself that will give you the courage I mentioned earlier. And trust in the rest is what will make you fly safely: your team-mates, the engineers who designed the machine, those who wrote the procedures, but also all the staff of a company united around the same mission: to transport people safely. The standards and procedures will give you a high level of confidence from the start of your mission, but this will evolve over time. It will increase or decrease according to the events you encounter, the shortcomings or mistakes you see in others and in yourself. It's a job that requires you to know yourself well, to know how to observe yourself so that you can continually improve. In short, you need to have self-confidence, but not too much either. Doubt can save you, but overconfidence can kill you. This subject of confidence alone would deserve an entire blog episode, so vast is the subject.
🔮 Anticipation and a proactive spirit
Flying is all about anticipation. The best flights are those where nothing seems to happen, because everything has been anticipated. Bad weather? You've already got round it. Traffic on arrival? Already foreseen. Being proactive means staying in front of your aircraft, creating comfort for others and margin for yourself. It's very rewarding when things ‘seem easy’ thanks to you. Your job will deform you, and you'll become anticipation machines: 5 minutes in front of your plane, 12 hours before you land, a month before you check your flight schedule... But you also have to be able to live in the moment, and be ready for every surprise or event that wasn't foreseen. Life is full of unforeseen events, and so are flights, and very soon you'll be hearing about the “Startle effect” (a physiological and cognitive reaction provoked by a sudden and unexpected event, which can temporarily alter a pilot's judgement and reflexes).
📏 Rigour, discipline and method
This profession does not forgive approximation. You have to learn to be square, precise and reliable. It's sometimes demanding, but in the end, this rigour becomes a comfort. It gives you reference points and reflexes. And when the going gets tough, it's these well-established automatisms that will save you. It won't protect you from making mistakes, you'll make them all your life, and it's this skilful blend of humility and discipline that will be your bulwark.
🌀 Adaptability, communication, empathy
No two crews are alike. So you have to be constantly adapting, communicating clearly and sympathetically, understanding others without judging. This job teaches you to read people, to create harmony in a few words. This richness extends well beyond the cockpit.
Keep it simple, rephrase doubts, never hesitate to express your feelings. But also know how to keep quiet when you need to, when you don't want to saturate the other person with information (in a world that's already saturated). CRM (Crew Resource Management) is the art of managing human skills and crew resources to optimise flight safety and performance. Mind you, this does not simply mean being friendly or always smiling. Human nature is much more nuanced. Kindness is a strength, but it's not always enough to protect you from more complex human dynamics.
🔍 Curiosity, desire to learn
Being good at everything without being an expert in just one area is a pilot's leitmotiv. The sky is vast, but knowledge is even more so. Curiosity is a precious compass: it will push you to learn more, to progress, and to never fall asleep. You also need to know how to economise, rest and celebrate when you need to. This will keep your thirst for learning alive.
✈️ Conclusion
If you dream of this profession, go for it. If you recognise yourself in these qualities, or want to cultivate them, then you've already got one foot in the cockpit. The sky doesn't judge your past, only your commitment.
Hugo POSSAMAI, 737 Flight Captain