CFIs Are Professional Pilots

FLYING staff writer and certified flight instructor gives spirited rebuttal to contributor’s recent column.

Friday, January 14, 2022 at 10:00 AM ET

Verified

The writer contends that CFIs have to master a list of skills, including flying at a commercial level. [File Photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

The article asserts that flight instructors (CFIs) are professional pilots, directly countering a previous definition that excluded them based on their primary role being education rather than flying.
The author argues that CFIs are professional pilots because they are paid for their services in an aircraft, act as required crew members, and must possess commercial pilot-level flying skills to instruct.
The article critiques a narrow definition of "professional pilot" by demonstrating how it could illogically exclude even airline pilots, whose duties often involve monitoring and programming rather than constant hands-on flying.

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Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a professional as “someone engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.” Given this definition, I submit that flight instructors are indeed professional pilots. I write this to counter colleague Sam Weigel’s recent “V1 Rotate” column that defined professional pilots, but did not include CFIs.

READ MORE: What Defines a Professional Pilot?

Weigel recognized his position was controversial, stating, “My definition of a professional pilot, for the purposes of this web series, is a person whose primary income is derived from acting as a required crewmember of a crewed aircraft in flight. The primary profession of flight instructors, he stated, is education, not flying.