Here's is an approximate historical timeline. Your personal experience may vary significantly depending on ability, motivation, and luck. Being single with no children is critical in the early years to allow you the flexibility to move anywhere in the world and take the inevitable paycuts associated with each new job.
Also this assumes that oil prices will drop, or suitable alternative aircraft fuels are implemented. If not, the airlines will begin an gradual contraction which will eliminate the jobs of many or most current pilots and preclude any new hires for about 35 years.
College: 4+ years (yes, you need a degree). You might be able to do some or all flight training in college, depending on time and money constraints.
Flight Training: 6-12 months (all ratings including CFI/CFII/MEI).
CFI: 6 -36 months (you will need to get an MEI job at some point to build ME time...if you delay this, you will remain a CFI until you get it done).
Part 135 Night Freight: 6-24 months. This builds quality ME time. If you are lucky, you might get into a corporate job instead of 135. You might be able to skip this step entirely and go straight to a regional if pilot demand is high.
Regional Airline FO: 2-4 years.
Regional CA: 1-12 years. This is where it gets tricky. Some majors may prefer "recently upgraded" regional CA's who have less than 1000 hours turbinbe PIC. Others require 1000+ TPIC, but may not want more than 4K-8K TPIC. The minimums are published, but the "ceiling" is not published and may vary depending on who is in charge of hiring. You will need to feel out the market when the time comes, but if you stay at a regioanal for 10+ years it might get harder to get out.
ACMI: 1-5 years. These are companies you've never heard of who operate large aircraft on contract to the US government, other governments, airlines, and large companies. Pay, stability, and QOL may be marginal compared to some large airlines, but you might have to go this route to get some international widebody experience to make yourself more competetive than the other RJ drivers. By international experience I mean expect to get shot at at some point.
Total time: 8-18 years from college graduation.
The best way to keep this number low is to excel at everything you do including college, airline training, and leadership. Seek out instructor/check airman jobs at each company you work for. Also don't bust any 121 (or 135) training events and don't get any FAA violations. Some of this is luck, but a lot of it is still up to you...control your own destiny at every opportunity.
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