On your journey to becoming a commercial airline pilot, your first stop after training and flight instructing will probably be flying as a First Officer. After gaining experience as a First Officer, you will then upgrade to Captain.
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Commercial airline pilots are addressed as Captain, “sir”, or “ma'am”. Even if you see the First officer standing by to bid you farewell, it's not customary to address them as anything but these three.
Some pilots choose “good” schedules over being a captain on a less desirable schedule. Many factors; family, second job, hobbies, residence (commuting to work from another city), reserve flying (no real schedule except days off, maybe), destinations, etc., go into each different pilot's decision.
A Captain is typically the highest rank. However, in some airlines, there is a role of a Training Captain – an experienced pilot who not only performs regular captain duties, but also takes on the responsibility of training and evaluating other pilots (they also wear four Captain stripes).
Once you progress on to a senior first officer role, salaries of up to £85,000 can be achieved. The starting salary for a captain with a medium-sized airline may range from £54,000 to £75,000. Those employed by major operators can earn £97,000 to more than £140,000.
Starting with zero experience, it takes two years to become an airline pilot. It will take you seven months to complete pilot training, then another 18 months to gain additional flight time and meet airline hiring requirements of 1,500 hours.
In the case of a single pilot aircraft, many confuse this classification of Captain when in fact it is legally only 'Pilot In Command' but not strictly Captain as there is no other flight crew to define rank against. A Captain, in the correct term is the PIC but the PIC is not necessarily a Captain.