Time Off As A Pilot: Are There Limits To How Much You Can Take At Once?

Why 90 days off is the magic number.


Photo: Vincenzo Pace I Simple Flying

Everyone needs a vacation or time otherwise spent away from work. Unique to pilots are the requirements for returning to work after a long absence. Ninety days is the magic number that changes what's required of pilots. Let's talk about why.

Time off (vacation or not)

Like anyone else, pilots might take extended time off work for family, vacation, illness, or other personal reasons. The length of time allowed away from work depends on the contract between the pilot's union and the airline. Unique to pilots is what happens when a fleet of aircraft is retired. Airlines attempt to methodically retire a fleet over time and "displace" a corresponding number of pilots to begin training on a new fleet. The very last pilots on a retiring fleet might find themselves with very little work when only a few planes in their fleet remain. The airline must staff reserve pilots until the very end, and the remaining pilots who are not "senior" will likely not get much flying. This leads to a broader conversation about pilot currency requirements.

What needs to be done after time off

Regulations in the US require that pilots make at least three takeoffs and landings in the previous 90-day period to stay "current." Three takeoffs and landings are legally viewed as the minimum amount of flying a pilot must perform to have the physical skills and active recall required to fly passengers. This rule applies only to pilots who intend to carry passengers, so private pilots can fly alone if more than 90 days have elapsed without them performing the required flying.

The common practice for airline pilots who have fallen out of currency is to visit a simulator for a training session. Regulations allow for the takeoff and landing requirements to be met in a full flight simulator that accurately matches the performance and handling of the aircraft to be flown. A short-haul pilot who spends three months away from work would be scheduled for a simulator session, as would a long-haul pilot who has not met the requirements. If flying in augmented crew operations with three or four pilots, any one of them might receive landing credit only once per month. It's typical for long-haul fliers who only take a month off work to visit the simulator because they would not have flown enough over the previous two months to log their three required landings.

Flight Instructors

An interesting wrinkle to the regulation regarding flight currency in the US applies to flight instructors. Misleading though it may be, student pilots who are actively under instruction in flight are not viewed by the regulations as passengers. Therefore, a flight instructor who has taken extended time away from the plane they are flying with a student does not need to meet the three takeoffs and landings requirement if the student is the only occupant of the aircraft. If this instructor wants to have another student in the backseat observing, they would be considered a passenger, and the instructor would need to be legally current in the aircraft.

For pilots, the amount of time off is a significant operational decision. If away for three months, pilots must head to their airline's base and visit the simulators. Since simulator training is an annual occurrence, this extra training is nothing unusual.