Glossary
Airline Pilot Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential airline pilot terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key airline pilot vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in airline pilot training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ATC
- Air traffic control.
- ATP
- Airline Transport Pilot certificate.
- Captain
- Pilot in command.
- Checklist
- Required step list.
- CRM
- Crew resource management.
- Duty time
- Work time limits.
- First officer
- Copilot.
- FMS
- Flight management system.
- IFR
- Instrument flight rules.
- METAR
- Weather report.
- Part 121
- Airline rules.
- Seniority
- Ranking by hire date.
- Simulator check
- Recurrent test.
- Type rating
- Certification for an aircraft type.
- Upgrade
- Moving to captain.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Airline Pilot practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Airline Pilot training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.