AvLink Flight School Finder

Find the flight schools near you

Every school on one map. Put in your town, your city or your nearest airport, and see what's actually within reach — closest first, with the distance to each. Then the part nobody tells you: how to work out which one to trust.

Open the map

1616 schools mapped. Free, no sign-up.

Where do you want to train?

Search a place or use your location. Every pin is a real school you can look up and contact yourself.

Map data and school locations from OpenStreetMap contributors, used under the Open Database Licence, with town names from GeoNames under CC BY 4.0. Coverage is uneven and this is not every school in the world — if yours is missing or wrong, tell us at hello@avlinkjobs.com and we'll fix it. We aren't affiliated with any school listed and we don't take a fee for a place on this map.

Before you pick one

Four decisions shape what training costs you and how long it takes. None of them is which school has the nicest website.

Or browse by country

1,616 schools across 91 countries. Each country page lists every school we hold there, grouped by town, and explains who issues licences in that country.

Do this first

Sit the medical before you spend money on flying

A commercial licence needs a Class 1 medical, issued by an aviation medical examiner rather than by any school. It is the only part of this you cannot study harder for, and people do spend thousands on lessons before finding out they can't hold one.

Book it, or at least a consultation, before your first paid lesson. If something in your history worries you — eyesight, hearing, anything you've been treated for — that conversation is the cheapest hour you will ever buy in aviation.

What it actually takes, start to first seat

Minimum hours, fees and exam rules are set by your aviation authority and they differ everywhere, so we haven't invented numbers. What follows is the shape of it, and where people come unstuck.

Schools order this differently, and so do authorities. Integrated courses fold the theory into the flying, some start the exams on day one, and some run the instrument rating alongside the commercial. Treat this as the shape of it, then ask any school you visit to walk you through their own order — and what each stage costs.

First
The medical, before anything else
A commercial licence needs a Class 1 medical. It is the one part of this you cannot study for, train for or retry your way past, and it is issued by your aviation authority's examiner, not by a school.
Sit it before you spend money on training, not after. People do spend thousands on flying lessons and then discover they can't hold a Class 1 — it is the cheapest insurance in aviation.
Then
One trial flight
An hour in the air with an instructor, hands on the controls. It tells you two things a brochure can't: whether you actually enjoy it, and what that particular school feels like on a normal working day.
Don't sign anything on the day. Fly with two or three schools before you commit to one — the difference between them is real and you can feel it.
Stage 1
Private licence
Learning to fly the aeroplane: circuits, navigation, emergencies, a written exam and a flight test. At the end you can fly yourself and your friends somewhere, but not for money.
This is where most people find out how weather-dependent their timeline is. Two cancelled lessons in a row is normal, not a bad school.
Stage 2
Commercial theory
A set of written exams covering navigation, meteorology, systems, performance, air law and human factors. Heavy going, and largely separate from the flying — plenty of people study these while hour building.
Theory credits expire, and so does the window between passing exams and finishing the licence. Ask how long yours last before you start.
Stage 3
Hours, then the commercial licence
The regulator sets a minimum number of hours before you can sit the commercial test. Most of that is flying you pay for yourself, which makes this the longest and most expensive part of the whole thing.
Almost nobody finishes on the legal minimum. Budget for more hours than the brochure assumes, or the shortfall arrives at the worst possible moment.
Stage 4
Instrument and multi-engine
A commercial licence on its own qualifies you for a narrower set of jobs than most people expect. The instrument rating and a multi-engine rating are what open up charter, freight and the airline path.
Check what the operators you actually want to work for ask for, before you choose which ratings to buy and in what order.
Stage 5
The first seat
For most people the first paid flying is instructing, survey, skydive dropping, coastal patrol or a right-hand seat on charter. It is rarely an airline, and that is normal — the first job exists to build the hours the next one wants.
Pick the training location partly on where the entry-level flying is. Being in the room when a job comes up still matters more than anything on paper.
See what those first seats look like

Eight things to look out for before you pay anyone

Nobody can tell you from the internet whether a particular school is any good. What we can do is give you the questions that have a checkable answer — and tell you what a bad answer sounds like.

The advertised price is the legal minimum, not your price

Course prices are almost always built on the fewest hours the regulator allows. That figure assumes you never repeat a lesson, never have a bad week, and never lose currency waiting for weather. Real training is not like that, and the gap between the brochure and the invoice is where people run out of money.

Ask them: What did your last ten students actually finish on — hours and total spend? If nobody can tell you, that is the answer.

Never prepay more than you could afford to lose

Bulk-hour blocks come with a genuine discount, and schools are genuinely cheaper to run when students prepay. But flight schools do close, and when one does, money sitting on account is usually gone — ahead of you in the queue are the bank, the leasing company and the staff. Treat any prepayment as money at risk.

Ask them: Is prepaid money held separately from the school's working account, and what happens to my balance if the school stops trading? Get the answer in writing.

Aircraft per student decides how fast you finish

The number that governs your timeline is not the school's reputation, it is how many serviceable aircraft there are divided by how many active students want them. A busy school with a thin fleet means waiting weeks between lessons, and flying you have to re-learn because of the gap.

Ask them: How many students are active right now, how many aircraft are serviceable today, and how far ahead do I need to book?

Your instructor will probably leave

Most flight instructors are building hours towards their own next job, which means turnover is built into the industry rather than being a sign of a bad school. It still costs you: a new instructor will re-check what you have already covered before signing you off, and that is your money.

Ask them: How long has my instructor been here, and what happens to my training if they leave halfway through?

Weather will set your timeline more than you will

Two schools with identical syllabuses and identical prices can take very different lengths of time, purely because of where they are. Long gaps between lessons mean re-flying things you had already learned, and that is your money. Reliable flying weather is worth more than a discount.

Ask them: What proportion of lessons get cancelled here in your worst month, and how do you catch students back up afterwards?

You are buying a country's licence, not a school's certificate

Licences are issued by an aviation authority, not by a flight school. Train in one country and want to work in another, and you are looking at a conversion: paperwork, exams, a flight test, a new medical and an English proficiency check. That is entirely doable — it just needs to be a decision you made deliberately, not one you discover at the end.

Ask them: Which authority issues the licence I finish with, and what does it take to convert it to where I actually want to work?

Check what your conversion would involve

Check the approval with the regulator, not the website

Training approvals have conditions, and they can lapse or be limited to certain courses. A school's own website is not evidence of any of that. Aviation authorities publish a register of who currently holds an approval and what it covers — the school's claim and the register are two different things.

Ask them: What is your approval number? Then go and look it up on the authority's own register yourself.

Get the extras in writing before you pay a deposit

The course price is often the flying and not much else. Landing fees, exam fees, test and examiner fees, headset, charts, medical, licence issue, insurance excess and re-tests add up to a meaningful share of the total, and they tend to appear one at a time.

Ask them: Send me a written list of everything I will pay that is not in the headline course price.

Take these with you when you visit

Eight questions, short enough to remember. Ask every school the same ones and the differences between them stop being a matter of opinion.

Can I see the syllabus and the full price list, in writing, today?
How many aircraft are serviceable right now, and how many active students?
What did your last ten students finish on, in hours and in total cost?
Where is prepaid money held, and what happens to it if the school stops trading?
What is your approval number with the authority?
Can I talk to two current students you haven't picked for me?
What proportion of lessons are cancelled in your worst weather month?
Which authority issues my licence at the end, and what would converting it involve?

Ask a pilot

We've been through this. Ask us anything.

AvLink is run by pilots who fly for a living and did all of this the long way round — the medical, the exams, the hour building, the licence that needed converting. There is no call centre and no chatbot here.

Ask whatever you're stuck on and a pilot writes back by email. No stupid questions, no sales call, and no school pays us a referral — which is exactly why we can tell you when one looks like a bad deal.

The questions we get most

Do I need a degree to become a commercial pilot?

No. Licences are issued against flight tests, written exams and a medical, not against a degree. Some airlines in some countries prefer one, and it can help with visas, but it is not part of getting the licence itself.

What should I do first if I want to start flying?

Book a Class 1 medical, or at least a consultation with an aviation medical examiner, before you spend money on training. After that, fly a trial lesson with two or three different schools before committing to any of them.

How do I choose between flight schools?

Compare the things you can verify rather than the things you can't: serviceable aircraft per active student, what recent students actually finished on in hours and cost, how prepaid money is held, the school's current approval with the aviation authority, and how often weather stops flying there.

Is it safe to pay for a block of hours up front?

Block payments are normal and usually discounted, but flight schools do occasionally stop trading and prepaid balances are often lost when they do. Treat any prepayment as money at risk, ask in writing whether it is held separately from the school's working account, and don't pay more than you could afford to lose.

Does it matter which country I train in?

Yes, because the licence belongs to the aviation authority that issues it, not to the school. If you train in one country and want to work in another you will need to convert, which typically means exams, a flight test, a medical and an English proficiency check. Decide where you want to work first, then choose where to train.

How long does it take to become a commercial pilot?

It depends on your authority's minimum hours, how often you can fly and the weather where you train — which is why two people on identical courses can finish months apart. Flying consistently matters more than flying intensively; long gaps mean re-learning, and re-learning costs money.

What is the first flying job usually?

For most people it is instructing, survey, skydive operations, coastal or pipeline patrol, or a right-hand seat on charter. An airline is rarely the first job. The first seat exists to build the hours and experience the next one asks for.

Is this list of flight schools complete?

No. It is built from OpenStreetMap, so coverage is uneven and some schools are missing or out of date. Nobody pays to appear on it and we are not affiliated with any school listed. If yours is wrong or missing, email hello@avlinkjobs.com and we will fix it.

Training is the start, not the finish

The hard part of a flying career isn't picking a school. It's the years after it: logging the hours, keeping your recency straight, and finding the seats you actually qualify for.

Free pilot logbook Browse pilot jobs Licence conversion guides