Scoot Pilot Requirements 2026: Hours, License and Hiring Process

Scoot, the low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, recruits its own pilots, all based in Singapore. Its Direct Entry First Officer 2026 posting asks for more than 1,500 hours of fixed-wing time on airplanes of 5,700 kg or more and a CAAS-issued CPL(A) or ATPL(A), with a foreign ATPL converted to a Singapore license, and ICAO English Level 4 or higher; it asks for no type rating, but a pilot trained on type pays part of the cost and signs a training bond. That is the posting as job boards’ copies of it showed in search results on 25 October 2026; we could not open Scoot’s portal or those pages, so Scoot was recruiting First Officers at the last check on that evidence alone, and its 2026 Captain postings appeared only on job boards. The selection, in the same copies, runs from online aptitude tests to an assessment center in Singapore, then a simulator and a personality assessment. Scoot’s 63 aircraft are Boeing 787-8s and 787-9s, A320-family jets and Embraer E190-E2s (Scoot, 7 May 2026).

Is Scoot hiring pilots now?

Recruiting at the last check on 25 October 2026 — First Officer seat: Recruiting; Captain seat: Unconfirmed. Direct Entry First Officer 2026 posting on job boards: more than 1,500 h on airplanes of 5,700 kg or more, a CAAS-issued CPL(A) or ATPL(A) (foreign licenses converted) and no type rating needed

Requirements, as published

Reading the requirements line by line

The requirements below are from Scoot’s Direct Entry First Officer 2026 (Singapore Assessment Centre) posting as job boards’ copies of it showed in search results on 25 October 2026, since we could not open Scoot’s own portal or the job boards’ pages, and from two pages of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), on the airline transport pilot license and on converting a foreign license, both updated on 3 September 2026. The selection stages further down are from the same copies of the posting.

• More than 1,500 hours, counted by weight. The posting counts fixed-wing flight time on airplanes with a maximum takeoff mass of 5,700 kg or more, so hours flown on lighter airplanes do not count toward the figure: total your logbook by aircraft mass before you apply. ICAO’s floor for an airline transport pilot license is 1,500 hours as a pilot of airplanes, with no weight limit (ICAO Annex 1, 2.6.3.1.1); CAAS’s own page gives no figure and refers you to its Singapore Air Safety Publication (SASP) Part 2 for the flying experience.
• A Singapore license. CAAS says that to fly a Singapore-registered aircraft you must convert a foreign pilot license to a Singapore one, and the posting asks for a CAAS-issued ICAO CPL(A) or ATPL(A); to convert a foreign ATPL it asks for an instrument rating and a proficiency check valid for at least six months. CAAS describes the conversion in two steps. First, an assessment of your eligibility: for a professional license you show the need for one with evidence of prospective employment in a flying capacity with a Singapore operator, an approved training organization or a flying club, and your foreign license must stay valid from the application until the Singapore license is granted. The terms you are then set require CAAS examinations, a CAAS medical assessment, a CAAS English language proficiency assessment, flight training if required and CAAS flight tests. Second, once you meet them all, the application for the license, which CAAS grants only after the authority that issued your foreign license has verified it.
• CPL or ATPL. CAAS’s ATPL page says you must hold an ATPL to pilot a Singapore-registered multi-crew aircraft for public transport, and lists the co-pilot seat among its privileges; it asks for an age of at least 21, a Class 1 medical, the ATPL-level theory examinations, the flying experience of SASP Part 2 and a multi-crew aircraft rating. The copies of the posting accept a CPL(A) as well and do not say how a CPL holder moves to the ATPL, so if that is you, ask Scoot.
• No type rating, but a co-payment and a bond. The posting asks for none: where applicable, Scoot trains you for the type rating of the fleet you are assigned to. A pilot who receives that training co-pays part of its cost and enters a training bond. The share, the length of the bond and the repayment terms were not in the copies we could read, so ask for them before you accept an offer.
• English, medical, vaccinations. ICAO English Level 4 or higher and the vaccinations CAAS requires, in the posting’s copies, and a Class 1 medical, which one copy names and which a CAAS ATPL needs.
• The right to work. The 2026 posting’s requirements, as job boards’ copies showed them in search results, say nothing about it. PilotsGlobal’s listing of the posting marks visa sponsorship as provided, and earlier Scoot postings, which search results dated 2022, asked for the legal right to work in Singapore. Whether Scoot arranges an employment pass for a foreign pilot today is among the points we could not confirm, so ask Scoot.

Entry routes

• Direct Entry First Officer 2026 (Singapore Assessment Centre): non-type-rated, more than 1,500 h on airplanes of 5,700 kg or more (job boards’ copies, October 2026)
• Direct Entry Captain 2026 postings for the A320 and the B787 (Singapore Assessment Centre): on job boards only, not seen on Scoot’s own portal
• Scoot cadet program: run in intakes, last relaunched in 2022 (co-funded, about 19 months, MPL or frozen ATPL, as reported); no 2026 intake found

Captains, cadets and the region

• Direct Entry Captains. On 25 October 2026 search results showed job boards listing Direct Entry Captain 2026 postings for the A320 and the B787, with an assessment center in Singapore, which we did not find on Scoot’s own portal. Their minimums are among the points we could not confirm: the job boards give about 3,500 hours with 1,000 in command for the A320 and the E190-E2, and more than 5,000 multi-crew hours with 2,000 in command for the B787, without dates, so read them on Scoot’s own posting.
• The cadet program. Scoot has run its cadet program in intakes rather than all year. Its relaunch, as AFM and Pilot Career News reported it in articles that search results dated 2022, was a co-funded course of about 19 months at Scoot’s preferred training school, leading to an MPL or a frozen ICAO ATPL and then base and line training on the 787 or the A320 family; applicants had to be at least 18, with the right to work in Singapore after training, five O-level credits including English, mathematics and a science, and Class 1 fitness. We found no 2026 intake, and a job board marks its listing of the A320-family cadet program closed.

Scoot beside its parent and the region’s other large airlines on our jobs board, as recorded at each airline’s last check:

Scoot and Singapore Airlines recruit separately. At its last check, on 16 October 2026, Singapore Airlines took direct-entry First Officers already rated on the A350 or A380, with 1,500 hours on those types, while Scoot’s posting asks for no type rating. Cathay Pacific’s Second Officer route starts above 250 hours and QantasLink’s First Officer route at 500, though QantasLink was not taking applications at the Qantas Group’s last check, so Scoot’s door suits a pilot who already has 1,500 hours on heavier airplanes and wants a non-rated seat in Singapore.

Selection process

1. Online application on Scoot’s careers portal
2. Online aptitude tests for shortlisted applicants
3. Assessment center in Singapore: a group exercise and an individual interview
4. Simulator assessment and personality assessment, over two days

Bases and fleet

Bases: Singapore

Fleet: A320ceo / A320neo / A321neo · B787-8 / -9 · Embraer E190-E2

Three families, one base

Scoot flies from one base, Singapore, with three aircraft families. Its media release of 7 May 2026 put its fleet at 63 aircraft: 24 Boeing 787s, 787-8s and 787-9s; 30 of the A320 family, six A320ceos, 12 A320neos and 12 A321neos; and nine Embraer E190-E2s, a type it has added since 2024. In its 2025/26 financial year it replaced eight A320ceos with A320neos and A321neos, and it plans to retire the remaining six A320ceos by 2028. The same release announced a firm order for five more A320neo-family aircraft and options taken up on six more, from its 2014 order with Airbus, to be delivered from 2028, which raises its A320neo-family order book to 20. Each family is a different type rating, and the posting, in job boards’ copies, says Scoot trains you for the fleet you are assigned to.

How to prepare

Scoot flies three aircraft families, and v1prep has a bank for each: the B787 bank for the 787-8 and 787-9, the A320 bank for the A320ceo, A320neo and A321neo, and the E-Jet bank for the Embraer E190-E2, with the Library’s Embraer E-Jet family and flight deck for what the E2 changed. The posting, in job boards’ copies, says Scoot trains you for the type rating of the fleet you are assigned to, so revise the family you know best and the ATPL theory banks for the performance, meteorology and navigation underneath. The selection in the 2026 posting, as those copies gave it, opens with online aptitude tests, so practice timed reasoning tasks before the invitation arrives. The assessment center in Singapore has a group exercise and an individual interview: prepare the interview with the CRM interview set for the crew resource management questions, and the A320 interview set if you fly the Airbus now. The last stage is a simulator assessment and a personality assessment over two days, and one copy of the posting names the MMPI; if your 1,500 hours are on single-pilot airplanes, practice flying as one of a crew of two, with callouts and a shared workload, before the simulator. Do the paperwork first: total your hours on airplanes of 5,700 kg or more on a line of their own, and, if you will convert a foreign ATPL, keep your instrument rating and proficiency check valid for at least six months, as the posting asks, and your foreign license valid until the Singapore license is granted, as CAAS requires.

Scoot has no interview guide on v1prep yet, so for the selection read the complete airline pilot interview guide and the Library’s pilot aptitude tests and airline simulator assessment. For the aircraft, start with the Library’s Boeing 787 family and flight deck, and read the pilot licensing framework for how a license from one ICAO state relates to another’s. Scoot’s parent is on Singapore Airlines pilot requirements, with its interview guide; the region’s other airlines are on Cathay Pacific pilot requirements and our page of pilot jobs in Asia-Pacific, and the airlines that open their doors at the same figure on pilot jobs with 1,500 hours. Check Scoot’s entry on the jobs board for the latest status.

What we could not confirm

• Researched on 25 October 2026 from search-engine results of the airline’s own careers pages, job postings and industry job boards — not from a direct read of the portal. Confirm the vacancy is still open before you apply.
• Whether the 2026 Direct Entry First Officer and Captain postings are still open on Scoot’s own portal, and their closing dates
• The co-payment share, the length of the training bond and the repayment terms (an earlier record gave a 50% co-payment for the B787 course, repaid over five years)
• Whether Scoot arranges an employment pass for a foreign pilot: the 2026 posting’s requirements, as job boards’ copies showed them, do not say
• The minimums of the 2026 Direct Entry Captain postings: job boards give about 3,500 h with 1,000 h in command for the A320 and the E190-E2, and more than 5,000 multi-crew hours with 2,000 in command for the B787, without dates
• A Second Officer route for the jet fleets from 200 h, listed by PilotsGlobal without a date and not seen on Scoot’s portal
• The internal Captain upgrade minimums (an earlier record gave 2,000 h in command on multi-crew transport aircraft above 50,000 kg)
• Whether a cadet intake is planned for 2026 or 2027

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 Scoot hiring pilots? Yes for First Officers at the last check, on 25 October 2026, on the evidence of job boards’ copies of Scoot’s Direct Entry First Officer 2026 (Singapore Assessment Centre) posting in search results: we could not open Scoot’s own portal, or the job boards’ pages, to confirm that it is open. Job boards, in the same search results, also carried 2026 Direct Entry Captain postings for the A320 and the B787, which we did not find on Scoot’s portal, so the Captain seat is unconfirmed. Check Scoot’s careers portal before you apply.

How many hours do you need to fly for Scoot? More than 1,500 hours of fixed-wing flight time on airplanes with a maximum takeoff mass of 5,700 kg or more, in the Direct Entry First Officer 2026 posting as job boards’ copies of it showed in search results on 25 October 2026. Hours flown on lighter airplanes do not count toward that figure. The posting asks for no type rating. CAAS’s own license pages give no hours figure: they refer you to its Singapore Air Safety Publication Part 2.

Do you need a CAAS license to fly for Scoot? Yes. CAAS says that to fly a Singapore-registered aircraft you must convert a foreign pilot license to a Singapore one, and Scoot’s 2026 posting, in job boards’ copies, asks for a CAAS-issued CPL(A) or ATPL(A), with an instrument rating and a proficiency check valid for at least six months to convert a foreign ATPL. CAAS describes the conversion in two steps: an assessment of your eligibility, for which you show prospective employment in a flying capacity, for example with a Singapore operator, then the application once you meet the terms it sets: CAAS examinations, a CAAS medical assessment, a CAAS English language proficiency assessment, flight training if required and CAAS flight tests. Your foreign license must stay valid until the Singapore license is granted (CAAS, page updated 3 September 2026).

Does Scoot pay for the type rating? Partly. Where applicable, Scoot trains you for the type rating of the fleet you are assigned to, but the 2026 postings, as job boards’ copies showed them in search results on 25 October 2026, say that a pilot who receives type rating training co-pays part of the cost and enters a training bond. The share, the length of the bond and the repayment terms were not in the copies we could read, so ask Scoot before you accept an offer.

Can foreign pilots fly for Scoot? A foreign license holder can apply, but has to convert the license to a CAAS one, and CAAS asks for evidence of prospective employment in a flying capacity before it assesses the conversion. On the right to work, the 2026 posting’s requirements, as job boards’ copies showed them in search results, say nothing: PilotsGlobal’s listing of the posting marks visa sponsorship as provided, while earlier Scoot postings, which search results dated 2022, asked for the legal right to work in Singapore. We could not confirm whether Scoot arranges an employment pass for a foreign pilot, so ask Scoot before you apply.