Thai Airways Pilot Requirements 2026: Hours, License and Hiring Process

Thai Airways, Thailand’s national airline, recruits licensed pilots through Qualified Pilot rounds on its own careers site, and the 2026 round has stalled: the airline postponed the document check of 20 April 2026 and the written exam of 9 May 2026, and no new date had appeared at the last check, on 1 November 2026. Qualified Pilot recruitment is registration on file: round 1 considered registrations made by 31 March 2026, and later registrants are kept for the next round, so the First Officer seat is a talent pool. The gates are Thai: a bachelor’s degree, completed military service for men, an ATPL(A), or a CPL(A) with all ATPL knowledge exams passed, issued by the CAAT with instrument and multi-engine ratings, ICAO English Level 4 and a Class 1 medical first issued by the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine. The page sets no hours minimum and requires no type rating. Thai Airways flies from its hub at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, with a fleet of 84 aircraft at 30 June 2026, from A320s to 787s.

Is Thai Airways hiring pilots now?

Talent pool at the last check on 1 November 2026 — First Officer seat: Talent pool; Captain seat: Unconfirmed. Qualified Pilot 2026: the first round’s exams, set for April and May 2026, were postponed with no new date, and later registrations are kept for the next round; it asks for a degree and a Thai ATPL, or a CPL with ATPL passes, and sets no hours minimum

Requirements, as published

Reading the requirements line by line

Thai Airways publishes its Qualified Pilot conditions in Thai, on the page we read in a GitHub runner’s download of 1 November 2026. What each line asks, in English:

• A degree, in any field. At least a bachelor’s degree, in any subject. A degree from abroad needs an equivalence certificate from Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation.
• A Thai license, at ATPL level or close to it. A valid ATPL(A), or a CPL(A) with every ATPL knowledge exam passed, issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) and endorsed with an instrument rating and a multi-engine rating. A foreign license is not on the list: Thai pilot licenses are issued under the CAAT’s pilot-license requirement, TCAR PEL Part-FCL (CAAT Requirement No. 48 of 2024), and the CAAT publishes separate rules for converting a foreign license.
• No hours, no rating. The page sets no flight-hours minimum and requires no type rating; holders of an Airbus or Boeing type rating receive special consideration. The license sets its own floor: ICAO Annex 1, the international standard, asks an ATPL(A) applicant for at least 1,500 hours of flight time as a pilot of airplanes (2.6.3.1.1), so the CPL route lets you register long before you could hold the full ATPL.
• English and medical. A valid ICAO English proficiency of Level 4 or above, and a valid Class 1 medical certificate first issued by the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, with no operational multi-pilot limitation (OML).
• Personal conditions. Good health and eyesight; a height of at least 165 cm for men and 160 cm for women; no criminal record; and, for men, completed military service.
• Nationality. The page states none. Its conditions are written for Thai applicants, though: men show completed Thai military service (the Sor Dor 8 or Sor Dor 43 document), every applicant a house registration, and both the license and the first Class 1 medical must be Thai. If you are not Thai, ask before you register. Questions go by e-mail only, to pilotrecruitment@thaiairways.com with [QP] in the subject; the airline answers none by telephone.

Entry routes

• Qualified Pilot 2026 — registration on file for holders of a Thai (CAAT) ATPL, or CPL with ATPL passes; round 1 took registrations made by 31 March 2026, and its exams were postponed, with no new date at the last check
• Student Pilot 2026 — trainee pilots, Thai nationals up to 32, recruited in the same campaign; applications closed on 31 March 2026 and the written Basic Knowledge Test was held on 19 April 2026 (Thairath)
• Direct entry Captain — not published

The Student Pilot route

Thai Airways also recruits trainee pilots, as Student Pilots, and in 2026 it ran both intakes in the same campaign, from 9 to 31 March 2026. Thairath reported the Student Pilot conditions on 5 March 2026, and they ask for no license: Thai nationality; an age of no more than 32 (born on or after 4 March 1994), or 18 to 32 for students still at university; a bachelor’s degree in any field, or, for students, a bachelor’s program recognized in Thailand, finished by 31 July 2027, with a GPA of at least 2.50; the Qualified Pilot heights, 165 cm for men and 160 cm for women; eyesight within published limits and a BMI of no more than 30 at the medical examination at the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine; no criminal record; and an English score of at least 63 in THAI TEP or 650 in the TOEIC Personal Test, with results dated between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2026. The written Basic Knowledge Test was held on 19 April 2026 at Thammasat University’s testing center in Rangsit, where 2,207 of the 2,335 applicants sat it, and the next stage was a medical check for those who passed (Thairath, 19 April 2026). The later stages, who pays for the training and whether a bond applies were not in the reports we could read, and the Student Pilot conditions are not on the Qualified Pilot page, so check the next Student Pilot notice on Thai Airways’ careers site. The Library’s pilot aptitude tests and pilot career pathways help you prepare and compare the routes.

Thai Airways beside its Asia-Pacific peers

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

Read each row with its date. Singapore Airlines had its ab-initio cadet route open in Singapore while its rated A350 and A380 contracts were closed (30 October 2026); Cathay Pacific’s Cadet Pilot Programme was open year-round while its Direct Entry Second and First Officer routes were not hiring (30 October 2026); IndiGo’s careers page listed cadet, type-rated, non-type-rated and expatriate pilot tracks, with no dated 2026 vacancy notice (14 October 2026); and in the Qantas Group, QantasLink was not accepting pilot applications (23 October 2026). Malaysia Airlines, not in the table, publishes only cadet routes, for Malaysian citizens (31 October 2026).

Selection process

1. Online registration on career.thaiairways.com, open from 9 March 2026; round 1 considered registrations made by 31 March 2026
2. Document check in person, with originals and copies (set for 20 April 2026, postponed)
3. Written exam (set for 9 May 2026, postponed; new dates to be announced)

Bases and fleet

Bases: Bangkok Suvarnabhumi

Fleet: 84 aircraft at 30 June 2026, after A321neo and 787 deliveries in the first half of the year (Thai Airways’ second-quarter 2026 release, as indexed); Thai Airways has set a target of about 150 aircraft by 2033 (its fleet plan, as indexed) · A320s: the 20 A320-200s of Thai Smile, which merged into Thai Airways at the end of 2023 (Thai Airways’ company history) · A321neo: the first, from AerCap, was welcomed at Suvarnabhumi on 25 December 2025, the first of 32 A321neos for Thai Airways and of the first ten under operating leases with AerCap (Thai Airways news release, December 2025) · A330, A350-900 and B777-300ER wide-bodies · B787-8 and 787-9 in service; on order, up to 45 787s from Boeing, the first ten of them 787-9s, with options for 35 more and the flexibility to switch to the 787-10 or the 777X, announced at the Singapore Airshow on 20 February 2024 (AIN, 20 February 2024)

How to prepare

Prepare the paperwork first, because the document check is the first stage. On the reporting day you show originals and copies of your national ID card, government official card or passport, your house registration, for men the military-service document (Sor Dor 8 or Sor Dor 43), your degree certificate and full transcript (with the ministry’s equivalence certificate for a degree from abroad), and your license, English proficiency and medical certificates. Check that the license carries the instrument and multi-engine ratings and that your Class 1 was first issued by the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, with no OML, the limitation that lets a pilot fly only as or with a qualified co-pilot (the Library’s medical certification). The page does not say what the written exam covers, so keep your ATPL theory fresh with the ATPL theory banks. On the fleet side, the A320 bank below covers the A320s and A321neos, and the B787 bank the 787-8 and 787-9, the type of the up to 45 787s Thai Airways ordered in February 2024, with the Library’s B787 family and flight deck; v1prep has no A350 or 777 bank. No type rating is required, but an Airbus or Boeing rating earns special consideration. Thai Airways does not publish its stages after the written exam; the Library’s technical questions in airline interviews and competency-based pilot interviews cover the interviews most airlines hold.

Thai Airways has no interview guide on v1prep yet, so for the later stages read the complete airline pilot interview guide and the Library’s airline pilot recruitment and selection and pilot licensing framework, which explains the ICAO English levels. The fleet is on our Boeing 787 pilot jobs and A320 pilot jobs pages, the Student Pilot route beside other airlines’ on cadet pilot programs, and the region’s other airlines on pilot jobs in Asia-Pacific, among them Malaysia Airlines, whose published routes are cadet tracks for Malaysian citizens. Check Thai Airways’ entry on the jobs board for the latest status.

What we could not confirm

• When the postponed Qualified Pilot 2026 exams will take place: no new date at the last check, on 1 November 2026
• Total-hours minimum: the Qualified Pilot 2026 page states none
• Whether Thai Airways considers non-Thai pilots for Qualified Pilot recruitment: the page states no nationality, but its conditions are Thai (military service for men, a house registration, a CAAT license, a first Class 1 from the Royal Thai Air Force)
• The selection stages after the document check and the written exam, and what the written exam covers
• The Student Pilot 2026 stages after the medical check, who pays for the training and any bond
• Whether Thai Airways recruits direct-entry Captains

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 Thai Airways hiring pilots? Thai Airways keeps Qualified Pilot registrations on file rather than opening dated vacancies, and its 2026 round has stalled: the document check of 20 April 2026 and the written exam of 9 May 2026 were postponed, with new dates to be announced, and no new date had appeared at the last check, on 1 November 2026. Round 1 considered registrations made by 31 March 2026; later registrants are kept for the next round.

Can foreigners become Thai Airways pilots? The Qualified Pilot page does not say: it states no nationality. Its conditions are written for Thai applicants, though: men must have completed Thai military service, every applicant shows a house registration, and the license must be issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand, with a first Class 1 medical from the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine. The Student Pilot route asked for Thai nationality in 2026 (Thairath, 5 March 2026), and we found no Thai Airways route for foreign pilots at the last check, on 1 November 2026, so ask before you register.

How many flight hours do you need for Thai Airways? The Qualified Pilot 2026 page sets no hours minimum. It asks for an ATPL(A), or a CPL(A) with all ATPL knowledge exams passed, issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand with instrument and multi-engine ratings, so the experience the license needs is the floor. A full ATPL needs at least 1,500 hours of flight time under ICAO Annex 1.

Do you need a type rating to join Thai Airways? No. The Qualified Pilot page requires no type rating, but holders of an Airbus or Boeing type rating receive special consideration. Thai Airways flies A320s and A321neos, A330s, A350-900s, 777-300ERs and 787-8s and 787-9s.

What else does Thai Airways require of pilots? At least a bachelor’s degree in any field (a degree from abroad needs a Thai equivalence certificate), completed military service for men, good health and eyesight, a height of at least 165 cm for men or 160 cm for women, no criminal record, ICAO English Level 4 or above, and a Class 1 medical first issued by the Royal Thai Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine with no OML limitation.