Icelandair Pilot Requirements 2026: Hours, License and Hiring Process

Icelandair, based at Keflavík in Iceland, which applies EASA’s rules, recruits pilots in advertised rounds. At the last check, on 30 October 2026, we found no open pilot vacancy on its jobs board, as search results showed it, nor any newer pilot advertisement. The last round we found was advertised in December 2025, with a deadline of 29 December, and asked for at least 500 hours on jets and a commercial pilot license issued by Samgöngustofa, the Icelandic Transport Authority, or another EASA authority (Flugvarpið, 15 December 2025); nearly 30 new pilots were being hired in early 2026, about 10 of them through its cadet route (Morgunblaðið, 28 January 2026). New pilots take Icelandair’s own course of about three months, which qualified the July 2026 class on the A321 or the 737, and the advertisement warned that the first years are not year-round jobs, because Icelandair’s flying is seasonal. Its international fleet is narrowing to the 737 MAX and the A321LR as the 757s and 767s retire, with Dash 8 turboprops on domestic and Greenland routes.

Is Icelandair hiring pilots now?

Unconfirmed at the last check on 30 October 2026 — First Officer seat: Unconfirmed; Captain seat: Unconfirmed. No open pilot vacancy found; the last round (December 2025) asked for 500 hours on jets and a commercial pilot license from Samgöngustofa or another EASA authority, with Icelandair’s own course to the A321 or the 737; its cadet route selects pilots before flight training

Requirements, as published

Reading the requirements line by line

We found no open Icelandair pilot vacancy, and Icelandair’s own pages could not be opened for this check, so the requirements below are those of its last round, advertised in December 2025, as Flugvarpið, an Icelandic aviation news site, reported it on 15 December 2025 (read in full) and Morgunblaðið on 28 January 2026 (as search results showed it on 29 October 2026). The advertisement itself we did not read. EASA’s rule was read in full. Treat each point as a guide to the next round, not a promise.

• 500 hours on jets. The round asked for at least 500 flight hours on jets, and Morgunblaðið repeated the condition (28 January 2026). That is time on jet airplanes, not total time, so hours on turboprops or in training airplanes do not make it up.
• A license from Samgöngustofa or another EASA authority. The applicant’s commercial pilot license had to be issued by Samgöngustofa, the Icelandic Transport Authority, or a comparable authority of another EASA member state (Flugvarpið). Iceland, outside the EU, applies EASA’s rules by agreement, as Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland do (as the Library’s EASA regulatory framework sets it out), so a license from any EASA state fits; a license from a third country has to be converted under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/723 first (the Library’s pilot licensing framework).
• The license level. The report names a commercial pilot license and does not say whether the round asked for a full ATPL or accepted a frozen one, or which multi-crew course it wanted, so ask. A frozen ATPL becomes a full ATPL at 1,500 hours of flight time in airplanes, 500 of them in multi-pilot operations (FCL.510.A).
• No type rating needed. The round asked for jet hours, not a rating, and for applicants able to start training in early 2026 (Flugvarpið); the 31 pilots who finished Icelandair’s course in July 2026, about three months long, came out qualified on the A321 or the 737 (Morgunblaðið, 24 July 2026, as search results showed it). Who pays for the course, and whether it is bonded, we could not confirm.
• Seasonal at first. The advertisement warned that the first years would not be year-round jobs, because Icelandair’s operations are seasonal (Flugvarpið), so ask what a winter contract looks like before you move.
• Right to work and language. Nothing we could read for this round states a right-to-work or language rule. The last cadet intake we found, for 2023–24, asked in search results for good English, with Icelandic desirable; an EEA right to work was in search results of Icelandair’s recruiting page on 21 September 2026, but nothing current confirms it.

Entry routes

• Direct-entry First Officer — recruited in rounds; the last one we found (December 2025) asked for 500 h on jets and a commercial pilot license from Samgöngustofa or another EASA authority, with Icelandair’s own course to the A321 or the 737
• Cadet route, Flugmenn til framtíðar (pilots for the future) — run with Pilot Flight Academy in Norway for its fall 2023 intake; graduates are given special consideration when Icelandair recruits, and about 10 of the nearly 30 pilots hired in early 2026 had been taken on before their flight training (Morgunblaðið); the last intake we found closed on 28 September 2023
• Direct-entry Captain — no vacancy found

Icelandair beside its European and Nordic peers

Icelandair beside the European airlines it is compared with on our jobs board, as recorded at each airline’s last check:

Read each row with its date. At their own last checks, Air France was recruiting direct-entry First Officers with no total-hours minimum, but asked for fluent French and the nationality of an EEA state or Switzerland (21 October 2026); KLM was recruiting pilots who already held a multi-pilot type rating, with English at Level 6 (13 October 2026); easyJet was recruiting Captains while its First Officer seat was not recruiting (12 October 2026); and Norwegian, whose First Officer vacancies closed on 31 August 2026, with no newer one found, asked a pilot without a 737 rating for 1,500 hours (30 October 2026). In the Nordic countries, SAS asked its experienced First Officers for 400 hours on CS-25 or FAR-25 aircraft and paid for the type rating (12 October 2026), and Finnair, with no vacancy for licensed pilots found, asks every pilot for fluent Finnish and English (27 October 2026). Like SAS and Finnair, Icelandair trains its new pilots on the type itself.

Selection process

The airline does not publish its selection stages in detail; expect an online application, screening against the published minimums, an interview and a simulator or aptitude assessment before the medical.

Bases and fleet

Bases: Keflavík · Reykjavík (domestic flights)

Fleet: Boeing 737-8 and 737-9: 21 (Aviation Week, 28 May 2026) · Airbus A321LR: six, with more due through 2027 (Aviation Week, 28 May 2026) · Boeing 757-200: eight active, to retire in winter 2026–27 instead of at the end of summer 2027 (Aviation Week, 28 May 2026) · Boeing 767-300: three, to retire by the end of 2026, ending Icelandair’s wide-body flying (Aviation Week, 28 May 2026; AirlineGeeks, October 2025) · De Havilland Dash 8 Q400 and Dash 8-200: domestic routes from Reykjavík and routes to Greenland, the Dash 8-200 likely to leave in 2026 (AirlineGeeks, August 2025; AeroRoutes, November 2025) · Airbus A321XLR: up to 25 ordered in 2023, the first toward the end of the decade (Aviation Week, 28 May 2026; ch-aviation)

Two jet families, and Dash 8s at home

Icelandair is leaving its Boeing 757s and 767s behind. On 28 May 2026 Aviation Week reported 21 737-8s and 737-9s and six A321LRs, with eight active 757-200s and three 767-300s by CAPA’s data, and that the 757s would retire in the winter of 2026–27 instead of at the end of summer 2027, with more A321LRs to come through 2027 and the A321XLR toward the end of the decade; the 767s’ retirement had already been brought forward to 2026, ending Icelandair’s wide-body flying (AirlineGeeks, October 2025). So the jets a new pilot meets are the 737 MAX and the A321, the types the July 2026 class was qualified on. Icelandair also flies Dash 8 turboprops, the Dash 8-200 and the Q400, on domestic routes from Reykjavík and to Greenland, the Dash 8-200 likely to leave in 2026 (AirlineGeeks, August 2025; AeroRoutes, November 2025); the reports we read do not say how those pilots are recruited.

Icelandair also selects some future pilots before they learn to fly. Its cadet program, offered for the third time in fall 2023 with Pilot Flight Academy in Norway, gives those who finish it special consideration when Icelandair recruits (Icelandair Group annual report 2023; Flugvarpið, 15 December 2025), and about 10 of the nearly 30 pilots hired in early 2026 had been taken on before they began their flight training (Morgunblaðið, 28 January 2026, as search results showed it). Icelandair’s page for the route, Flugmenn til framtíðar (pilots for the future), showed its 2023–24 intake in search results: ages 18 to 30, a secondary-school diploma or equivalent and good English, with Icelandic desirable, closing on 28 September 2023. We found no newer intake.

How to prepare

Icelandair recruits in rounds, so prepare before the next one opens, starting with your logbook: the December 2025 round counted 500 hours on jets, not total time, so lay your jet hours out on their own. For the type, the July 2026 class was qualified on the A321 or the 737, the two families Icelandair keeps as its 757s and 767s retire, and the reports we read do not say how a new pilot is assigned to one, so work both: the B737 bank below covers the 737 MAX, with a 737 NG to MAX quiz and the Library’s 737 NG and MAX differences, and the A320 bank the A321. Flying from Iceland means ocean crossings and winter weather: the Library’s oceanic and North Atlantic operations, cold-weather operations and aircraft ground de-icing and anti-icing cover the procedures. Icelandair publishes no selection stages for direct entry that we could read, so prepare for an interview and a simulator check, with the B737 interview set or the A320 interview set, the CRM interview set and the Library’s airline simulator assessment. Have your papers ready too: the round asked for a commercial pilot license issued by Samgöngustofa or another EASA authority, so a license from outside the EASA system has to be converted first.

Icelandair has no interview guide on v1prep yet, so for the selection read the complete airline pilot interview guide and the Library’s competency-based pilot interviews and technical questions in airline interviews. On the license, the Library’s EASA regulatory framework explains why an Icelandic license is an EASA one, and its commercial and airline transport pilot licenses how the frozen ATPL becomes a full one. The other Nordic airlines are on SAS, Norwegian and Finnair pilot requirements, the region as a whole on our page of pilot jobs in Europe, and the 737 operators on Boeing 737 pilot jobs. Check Icelandair’s entry on the jobs board for the latest status.

What we could not confirm

• Researched on 29 and 30 October 2026 from search-engine results of Icelandair’s own pages and jobs board and of Morgunblaðið’s reports — not from a direct read; Flugvarpið’s report of 15 December 2025, Icelandair Group’s 2023 annual report and the trade press were read in full. The December 2025 advertisement itself was not read; its terms are as the press reported them. Confirm on Icelandair’s careers pages before you apply.
• Whether applications are open now, and when the next round opens
• The license level: Flugvarpið names a commercial pilot license, not whether the December 2025 round asked for a full or a frozen ATPL; and whether Icelandair still asks for an EASA ATPL or frozen ATPL with a CPL, ME-IR and APS MCC, as search results of its recruiting-pilots page showed on 21 September 2026 (that page did not appear again)
• Who pays for the type rating, and any bond
• The right to work and language rules for direct entry: an EEA right to work was in search results of 21 September 2026, but nothing current confirms it
• Whether Icelandair recruits Captains from outside: we found no Captain vacancy
• Whether Flugmenn til framtíðar will take a new intake, and on what terms
• Whether Icelandair’s domestic Dash 8 flying from Reykjavík recruits pilots separately from its jet fleet, and on what terms

These points are not published clearly by the airline. Treat them as leads, not facts, and confirm them on the careers page: careers page.

Common questions

Is Icelandair hiring pilots? Not that we could find at the last check, on 30 October 2026: Icelandair’s jobs board, as search results showed it, listed no pilot role, and we found no newer pilot advertisement. It recruits in rounds; the last one we found was advertised in December 2025, with a deadline of 29 December (Flugvarpið, 15 December 2025), and nearly 30 new pilots were being hired in early 2026, about 10 of them through its cadet route (Morgunblaðið, 28 January 2026). Watch Icelandair’s careers pages for the next round.

How many hours do you need to fly for Icelandair? At least 500 hours on jets in the December 2025 round, as Flugvarpið (15 December 2025) and Morgunblaðið (28 January 2026) reported it; that is time on jet airplanes, not total time. We found no current vacancy, so the next round may set a different figure.

Do you need a type rating to fly for Icelandair? Not in the December 2025 round, which asked for jet hours rather than a rating. New pilots take Icelandair’s own course of about three months; the 31 who finished it in July 2026 came out qualified on the Airbus A321 or the Boeing 737 (Morgunblaðið, 24 July 2026, as search results showed it). Who pays for the course, and any bond, we could not confirm.

What license do you need to fly for Icelandair? A commercial pilot license issued by Samgöngustofa, the Icelandic Transport Authority, or a comparable authority of another EASA member state, in the December 2025 round as Flugvarpið reported it (15 December 2025). Iceland applies EASA’s rules, so a license from any EASA state fits, and a license from outside the EASA system has to be converted first. Whether the round asked for a full or a frozen ATPL, the reports we read do not say.

Is an Icelandair pilot job year-round? Not at first, by Icelandair’s advertisement of December 2025 as Flugvarpið reported it (15 December 2025): new pilots should not expect year-round jobs in their first years, because Icelandair’s operations are seasonal. Ask what the winter months would mean for your contract before you apply.