If you brief a search today, when does the pilot walk into the sim? The honest answer in 2026 depends on three variables: the source of the candidate, the urgency of the operation, and how many bottlenecks the operator is willing to remove. Here are the benchmarks across the European market.
The stages, and where the days go
Total time-to-hire splits across roughly six stages:
- Brief and sourcing
- Initial screening
- Documentation pre-check
- Interview and sim assessment
- Offer and contract
- Onboarding and start
The figures below reflect what we see across operator briefs in the Veejo Network — directional, not statutory. Your mileage will vary.
Stage 1: Brief and sourcing
| Channel | Median days |
|---|---|
| Traditional agency, cold brief | 35-55 |
| Traditional agency, warm shortlist | 18-28 |
| In-house team with active pipeline | 8-15 |
| Network-based platform (Veejo) | 3-7 |
| Direct referrals only | 1-30, depends on luck |
The agency model is slow because the agency does sourcing only after you've signed the retainer. The network model is fast because the candidates are already pre-vetted before you brief.
Stage 2: Initial screening
| Step | Median days |
|---|---|
| CV review | 2-5 |
| Documentation collection request | 5-10 |
| Pre-screen call | 3-7 |
| Stage subtotal | 10-22 |
This is the area most operators silently lose time. The reason: requests for documentation go via email, sit in inboxes, and get chased manually.
Stage 3: Documentation pre-check
| Document | Verification effort |
|---|---|
| Licence and ratings | 2-3 days (CAA dependent) |
| Class 1 medical | 1 day |
| ICAO Language Proficiency | 1 day |
| Logbook reconciliation | 3-7 days, often the bottleneck |
| Previous employer references | 5-15 days, often the bottleneck |
| Stage subtotal | 10-25 |
The logbook reconciliation and reference checks are the two undiagnosed time killers. A reference from a previous airline HR may take 10-15 business days in 2026. A logbook from a paper-only era often takes a manual cross-check that can stretch to 3 weeks.
Stage 4: Interview and sim assessment
| Step | Median days |
|---|---|
| Schedule technical interview | 5-10 |
| Technical interview | 1 day |
| Schedule sim assessment | 5-15 (sim availability) |
| Sim assessment | 1 day |
| Debrief and recommendation | 2-5 |
| Stage subtotal | 14-32 |
Sim availability is the biggest variable. Operators with their own sim run this in 5-7 days; operators renting time from a training centre often wait 2-4 weeks.
Stage 5: Offer and contract
| Step | Median days |
|---|---|
| Internal sign-off (HR + accountable manager) | 3-7 |
| Offer drafted and sent | 1-3 |
| Candidate negotiation | 3-7 |
| Contract signed | 2-5 |
| Stage subtotal | 9-22 |
Stage 6: Onboarding and start
| Step | Median days |
|---|---|
| Notice period at current employer | 30-90 (often outside operator's control) |
| Pre-employment medicals + checks | 5-10 |
| Type rating, if required | 25-45 |
| Line training, before first revenue flight | 20-35 |
The notice period is the real wall. A current line pilot at a EU low-cost typically has 30-60 days notice; a legacy carrier captain 60-90.
End-to-end medians, 2026
| Recruitment model | Brief to signed offer | Brief to first revenue flight |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional agency | 95-145 days | 6-12 months |
| In-house, active pipeline | 55-95 days | 5-10 months |
| Network-based platform | 35-65 days | 4-9 months |
The differentiator is stages 1, 2, 3 — sourcing, screening, documentation. By stage 4, every operator runs the same sim and the same interview. By stage 5 and 6, the candidate's old employer dictates pace, not you.
The three bottlenecks every recruiter underestimates
- Document verification. When you ask for the logbook, what format does the candidate send? If it's an unstructured PDF or scanned paper, plan for a week. If it's a Veejo Career Log export, plan for 30 minutes.
- Reference responsiveness. Airlines' HR teams reply to reference requests in 5-15 business days. Build your forward pipeline so candidates pass references *before* you commit to a sim slot.
- Sim slot availability. Book provisional sim slots on the brief date, not after the technical interview. In our experience this single change removes one of the longest waits in the whole pipeline.
What you control vs what you don't
- You don't control: candidate notice periods, CAA verification queues, weather cancellations of sim slots.
- You do control: how fast you source, how clean your documentation request is, whether your sim is booked provisionally, how quickly internal sign-off moves.
The 95th-percentile operators in our network all moved 18-30 days out of the time-to-hire through process discipline alone, with no platform change.
How Veejo helps
- Pre-vetted network: sourcing happens in hours, not weeks.
- Verified documents on file: licence, medical, English, logbook all on the pilot's Veejo profile.
- Direct messaging and interview booking: no email back-and-forth between recruiter and candidate.
Operators using the Veejo Network consistently come in well under the traditional agency benchmark — often by one to two months.