Pilot jobs where you are home every night

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The role of a commercial pilot naturally attracts people who love the idea of travel. Yet, constant timezone changes, alongside nights away from home can take a toll on your health, and not to mention, your relationship.

Living out of a suitcase is a lifestyle that’s not for everyone, after all. But, if you’ve got the bug for aviation, are there any pilot jobs that you can be home every night?

Believe it or not, there are plenty. They just typically don’t have such glamourised social media accounts… unfortunately, your bed is distinctly less instagrammable than a sun kissed beach on the other side of the world!

In this article, we’ll have a look at several options for pilots who love a night in their own bed, as much as they love flying.

8 various piloting roles that might allow you to be home every night…

Flight instructor teaches student level flight

Regional Airline Pilots: While it’s true that commercial airline pilots often spend nights away from home due to long-haul flights, regional airline pilots typically operate significantly shorter routes. These routes can be domestic — within the same region or country — reducing the likelihood of overnight stays further. While regional schedules can be demanding with numerous rotations a day, these pilots typically find they’re home most nights.
Corporate or Charter Pilots: Pilots for corporate or private charter flights regularly have more nights at home compared to commercial airline pilots. Many fly during the day and are home at night. Be warned though, this can depend hugely on the client’s needs. Charter pilots operating long-range jets can find themselves away from home more than airline or cargo pilots, and for long blocks of work. However, there are niche roles within corporate and charter flying — especially those that operate turboprop aircraft — where days away from home are a rarity.
Flight Instructors: As a flight instructor, you’d spend your day teaching aspiring pilots how to fly. This role typically operates during normal business hours (9-6pm) in the week, and on weekends, meaning you would be home each night. While you may get the odd student that wishes to learn to fly at night, this requires a night rating and is a separate qualification. As a result, not only do flying instructors swerve nights out of bed, they rarely fly past sunset! This is a great role for someone who enjoys teaching and wants to share their passion for flying without the time away from home.
Air Taxi or Commuter Pilots: Air taxis, also known as commuter planes, are often used for short trips, such as transporting workers to offshore oil rigs or residents of remote locations. Some pilots will have contracts with specialist air taxi companies, whilst others might even work directly for larger companies such as oil majors. Maximising efficiency, and with no place for pilots to stay on the oil rigs, these flights are usually scheduled during the day, allowing the pilot to return home each night.
Agricultural Pilots: Agricultural pilots, also known as crop dusters, have the crucial job of applying pesticides, fertilisers, and other treatments to crops. They typically work during daylight hours in the planting and growing seasons. The nature of this work typically allows these pilots to be home every evening, with minimal flying during the winter months and longer days throughout spring and summer. However, this job is both seasonal and region dependant. While countries including Canada, America, New Zealand and Australia have plenty of work for agricultural pilots, their use is less widespread in European countries.
Medical/EMS Pilots: Pilots who work in emergency medical services operate air ambulances and transport patients to hospitals, frequently on a shift basis. They might also transport medical personnel and organs for transplants. This role can often mean unpredictable hours, with late night and early starts a given. However, the nature of the work means that EMS pilots have schedules that allow them to return home each night, with no overnight hotel stays involved.
Law Enforcement Pilots: Piloting for law enforcement agencies, such as local police or border patrol, also involves scheduled shifts similar to other law enforcement officers. Like medical pilots, this could mean rotating patterns of day shifts and night shifts, but with seniority and shift swapping, law enforcement pilots can end up at home each night.
Experience Pilots: This niche category includes pilots who provide experiences like skydiving or helicopter tours. Skydiving pilots spend their day taking thrill-seekers up to jump altitude and then landing to do it all over again. It’s not uncommon to for these hands-on aviators to end up getting 20+ takeoffs and landings in on a busy day! Less fast-paced, helicopter tour pilots offer sightseeing trips to tourists, often over cities or landmarks. Both of these roles are primarily daylight jobs, allowing these pilots to be home each evening.

It’s important to remember each of these roles comes with its own unique demands and benefits. There is arguably more variability between these job roles than those in differing airlines.

On the face of it, all these pilot jobs offer the possibility of being home each night, however, the specifics of your schedule can vary depending on many factors. These include the size of the company you work for, its operational needs, and — like the airline jobs — your seniority within the organisation.

The trade-off for being home every night

Of course, while the roles discussed offer the chance to be home every night, they also come with certain drawbacks that potential pilots should be aware of. Here’s a summary of some main downsides…

corporate jet on final approach to landing

Typical aircraft used by crop dusting pilots

Lower Base Rates of Pay

Many of the roles mentioned typically offer lower base pay than major airline pilots.

For example, regional airline pilots, flight instructors, air taxi pilots, and experience pilots start on relatively low salaries, especially at the beginning of their careers.

Over time, with increasing experience and seniority, pay can increase, but these regional jobs are typically seen as “stepping stone” jobs, so renumeration rarely reaches the levels offered by major airlines.

Limited Career Progression

In some of these roles, the potential for career progression may be more limited compared to working as a pilot for a major airline.

For instance, flight instructors, agricultural pilots, and experience pilots like skydiving and tour pilots might find limited opportunities for advancement within their respective fields.

Typically, experience relates to the employer, rather than offering variation within the job role. So within each niche, e.g. helicopter tours, there will be operators pilots aspire to work for, that have better pay and conditions, and stricter hiring experience.

Job Security

Job security can be a concern in virtually all of these roles — look at the Covid-19 pandemic for the most recent example of mass layoffs. It’s no secret that the aviation industry is heavily impacted by factors such as economic fluctuations, seasonal demand, and global instability. Yet for smaller operators with tight margins, an additional challenge of company stability is added into this mix.

For instance, corporate or charter pilots’ employment can heavily depend on the financial health of the client or the charter company. Oil rig transport pilots expect to be laid off in times of low oil prices, agricultural pilots often face issues with seasonal work, and job security for experience pilots can depend on tourism rates.

It’s not all bad, though. Despite this, there are some niche roles for pilots where job security is arguably more stable than the airlines. While difficult to enter, pilots that work in law enforcement or medical roles arguably have more job security than those at smaller airlines.

Workload and Work Hours

While these roles regularly allow for pilots to spend nights at home, they can also involve irregular or long working hours. Medical/EMS pilots, law enforcement pilots, and sometimes corporate pilots may work on-call or in shifts, which can lead to unpredictable schedules, even if they are home each night.

There is a trade-off between time away from home and spending nights in your own bed. Typical flying jobs offer a fixed roster pilots can plan around, versus the guarantee of nights at home but irregular shift work and frequent on call days.

While unstable rosters can plague smaller airlines, at major airlines with good roster stability, these nights away from home may be preferable to disruptive shift work patterns.

Physical and Mental Stress

Certain roles, like EMS or law enforcement pilots, can come with high levels of stress due to the critical nature of their missions.

While airline pilots will deal with their fair share of emergencies, by definition, emergency response pilots will face tragedy and high-stress situations on a far more regular basis.

Additionally, skydiving or agricultural pilots may face physical stress from the demanding flight manoeuvres required in their job. While pilot retirement ages differ around the world — aging remains the same! And it’s no surprise to see that jobs with demanding hands-on flying have an age profile that skew lower.

Less Glamorous

These roles might not come with the perceived glamour or social prestige associated with being a long-haul airline pilot. Not to mention the lack of perks.

Some of these roles provide healthcare and pensions, but there is a large amount of variability depending on company size and location. Equally, none of the roles provide the same opportunities for discounted international travel or the chance to fly large, state-of-the-art aircraft that jobs at major airlines bring.

At Flyingbynumbers, we believe that job satisfaction is hugely important, but job satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills!

Summary

Exploring the world through continuous travel is a highlight for many aviators. However, there are plenty of pilots who value nights in their own bed!

For those with a love of flying — but without the love of being away from home — surprisingly, there are plenty of options. Ranging from law enforcement, crop dusting to flight instructing, these jobs range between typical business hours and shift working options. One thing they all have in common though, pilots will have zero to minimal nights away in hotels, returning home each day like a more traditional job.

With this compromise, comes several trade-offs. Typically, these jobs pay less, and have less job security and perks in comparison to jobs within the airline industry.

However, while these are potential downsides, it’s important to remember that job satisfaction is highly personal and depends on many factors beyond pay and career progression. For some pilots, being able to sleep in their own bed each night — rather than sleeping on the plane! — and maintain a consistent schedule might outweigh these disadvantages.