haha…I really want to know. I’m so confused as to what I want to do for a living, and I desperately want an adventure (job-wise).
So how does one become a pilot for a large airliner? I’m currently just a political science major at a university, so this is quite a random thought for me, but I might seriously be interested 
The easiest way is to join the Air Force and let them teach you to fly.
Then apply to the Airlines.
yes, but I think you have to fly for them for ten years or so.
Good thing, too… I wouldn’t want anyone with less than that flying one of those huge rigs around.
Contrary to rumor, most airline pilots these days do not have military experience. It’s one route, but not the only route.
I’ll let the “big jet” pilots speak about the career track, but I will point out that flying passengers isn’t quite the adventure it used to be, and in fact can become pretty routine.
If it’s “adventure” you want there are several other areas of aviation that may prove more exciting.
[ol]
[li]First, you learn how to fly.[/li][li]Then, you eat a lot, until you become large.[/li][/ol]
haha…
CeeNT
Just remember, if you do put in 10 years of flying in the Air Force your arms will get very tired.
lissner beat me to it.
Seriously, have a look at University of North Dakota if you want something better than “Billy Bob’s Flight Skool”
wow…so it’s about 30,000 to get the training needed?
Go to salon.com and search for “Ask the Pilot.” Patrick Smith is a former airline pilot with a column that’s been going for a few years now. Start at the beginning, that’s probably where he talks the most about what he had to do.
CeeNT, I’ve spent $30,000 NZD and $15,000 AUD so far on my career.
If you just want to be a pilot because it involves a lot of travel and a bit of excitement, then you will never stick with flying. It takes some real dedication, and a true love of flying to make it. Also, most pilots never make it to an airline, it’s a highly competitive industry. You can’t just spend your money and then have a good chance at a job. Another problem with it is that, although airline salaries are ok (not as good as they used to be), jobs flying light aircraft in general aviation pay very poorly, and you need a couple of those jobs to get the experience required for an airline.
Now, having put you off, a normal career path might be this (flying hours are correct for NZ, your requirements may be slightly different):
Gain Private Pilots Licence (50hrs), this lets you carry passengers but not for hire or reward.
Gain Commercial Pilots Licence (200 hrs inc 50 from PPL), allows you to fly for a living, but only light aircraft in visual conditions, ie you can’t fly in cloud.
At this stage you have the absolute bare minimum qualifications and experience. your chances of getting hired are very slim and you need some luck or someone, a friend, or maybe one of your instructors, who can get you your first job. Many pilots just do a little charter work for their flying school at this stage.
Now you can do some instructing at your school as well as the occassional charter.
At this point, depending on how much work you’ve been doing at your school, you may have 700-1000 hours. If you’re lucky you may get a break and get work with a charter company flying light twin engine aircraft. If not, you may have to stick with your flying school doing more instructing and charter work.
Now it’s just a matter of applying and reapplying for jobs. You probably won’t step straight into a major airline, you will need a lot of multi engine instrument time and you will probably get your first real job with a small company that has a regular passenger service in a medium sized twin turbine aircraft. Once you get that regular job though, it’s probably just a matter of time before you step into something a bit better.
I should say that the very first thing you should do if you are serious about this is to go and get a Class 1 Aviation Medical, if you can’t qualify for one of those then you aren’t going anywhere in aviation, best to find out early.
Hope this helps, I’m sorry if I sound negative, but it really is a hard slog for most people. Going down the Air Force route has it’s own problems (such as going to war!).
Pilot141 is an airline pilot on these forums who went via the Air Force (I think), he may be able to help more.
The cost of my career may be a little on the low side as I’ve skipped the instructors rating and the flying in NZ was cheaper than the norm (in that country).
The minimum requirement to fly for the airlines is an ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) rating. In Canada, this requires 1500 hours of flight time and a multi-engine IFR rating.
BTW, how is your eyesight? Anything other than 20-20 uncorrected is a major liability.
A career in aviation should only be followed if you love aviation. Because the pay is crap unless you are one of the handful of lucky pilots flying large jets on major routes.
I can give you a couple of cautionary stories - the first is mine. I got my pilot’s license, flew several hundred hours on my own money, then applied for the commercial pilot’s medical. My eyes were slightly over the minimum requirement, but I applied for ‘Flexibility - vision’ and got an exception. So I went on to start the commercial pilot program. After spending thousands of dollars on it, I got a letter from the government denying my medical, saying that upon review they decided I couldn’t have flexibility applied after all. End of career, end of many thousands of dollars.
A friend was more successful. He got his pilot’s license, then spent every nickel he had for a couple of years building up the minimum hours for commercial training. He eventually got a commercial license and an instructor rating. He went to work for a flying school, making $15/hr teaching people to fly. But he only got paid for time spent in the airplane, which was maybe five or six hours out of a ten hour day. And of course, all this money was piled back into training. After he had 1200 hours or so, he started work on a multi-engine IFR and his ATP, using student loan money.
After he got his ATP, he got a job flying for a small cargo company, as co-pilot in a twin engine piston plane. I think he made around $22,000 a year or so. He did that for a couple of years, and then moved up to a twin turbine (Beech King Air). Several more years of flying that, at a salary that was still under $30,000. Bear in mind that he was now also paying back something like $15,000 in student loans. The last time I saw him he had moved up the ladder and was a corporate pilot flying a small jet (a Cessna Citation, probably). By now, he was up around $35,000 a year. He had almost 4000 hours, much of it jet or turbine time, and STILL couldn’t get a job for even a regional airline. And the regionals don’t pay much. “Time Air”, the regional he was trying to get on with, paid $28,000 for co-pilots in their small turboprop planes, and even if you made it up to captain of a DC-9, their biggest plane, your salary was still under $50,000. By then, you’d probably have had 20 years in the industry.
On the other end of the scale, senior pilots flying 747’s for Qantas, Japan Airlines, and other major airlines can make $200,000 a year and get all kinds of perks and tax breaks. But those types are few and far between.
Somewhere in the middle you’ll find the guys flying smaller jets like 767’s, DC-9’s for large airlines, and the like. They can make good salaries (I have no idea what they are now, but I’d guess $70,000 and up is fairly common for captains).
The minimum requirement is a commercial rating unless you are acting as PIC. You used to see lots of guys from my school getting hired with 800-900 hours. They would build the time needed for the ATP on the job. I believe the bare minimum for a commercial rating in the US at a Part 141 school is 190 hours, although you would be damned lucky to get a job with that kind of time. 
With a newly minted Commercial with an IFR, there basically two things you can do: Fly students around the practice area, or fly fish out of Alaska in a beat-up Cessna 185.
Occasionally you can find jobs flying pipeline patrols.
My first flying job was flight testing missile systems for a government agency. I was hired with around 215 hours. While that isn’t the norm, I’m just saying there are alternatives to building time besides flying fish or instructing.
It would not be realistic to think you could get any kind of airline job with 800-900 hours at the moment. There are far too many out of work pilots with 1000s of hours jet command time waiting to snap up the jobs first. I know it does happen, and it has happened in the past, but the OP would be deluding himself to think that that’s how it works. Unless the industry is in much better shape in your part of the world.
There are also some airlines that run a cadet programme, I’m not quite sure how they work but you end up with an airline job with bare minimum hours. I believe QANTAS runs them and maybe Singapore Airlines.
Something I forgot to add about UND - They have, or at least used to have, an “ab initio” program where airlines (Northwest, primarily) would give scholarships to students. The catch is the student is pretty well indentured to that airline, but at least they’re all but assured of a job right out of school.
It’s gonna be on 12-seat puddle-jumpers or worse, but it’s a job, right?
CeeNT there’s some good advice in this thread.
I went the military route (US Air Force) and was lucky enough to go right from active duty to a major airline. But as you know, flying in the military isn’t just as easy as signing up and going. The commitment for new AF pilots is ten years after completion of pilot training, so eleven years total. This can change, but that’s what it is right now. The life you lead will be fun and incredibly challenging but it demands dedication on your part.
Some people that have worked their way up the civilian route have given you a good idea of what that entails as well.
As for major airline hiring, in the last big hiring wave (1996-2001) the classes were usually around 50% civilian and 50% ex-military, with some variation at individual airlines.
One thing that you need to think about is that one of the biggest factors in getting hired to fly the big jets is totally out of your control. That factor is timing. If your timing is bad, you can spend years languishing at a regoinal airline or hauling checks at night. If your timing is good, you can be hired at a major airline when you’re 28. Unfortunately the industry is cyclical, and you will be at the mercy of the industry. Friends of mine who separated from the Air Force just a year or two later than me saw the major airline door slammed shut in their face. The industry is hyper-competitive right now, since most major US airlines have pilots on furlough. For example, FedEx may start hiring this year and they have over 10,000 qualified applicants for what will end up being about 200 interviews.
But five years from now, the hiring flood may start again. You just never know.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for anything in the world. It’s been a great ride, and I’m lucky enough to have a long road still ahead of me.
Good luck in whatever you do, but realize that the coveted seat with a view in a big jet will take years of commitment from you.