Pilot logbook for airline interviews: stamps and PDF

At an airline assessment your logbook is not a formality. Recruiters use it to check the hours on your application, to see how you fly and to judge how carefully you work. A tidy, consistent logbook supports everything you say in the interview; a messy one raises questions before you have opened your mouth.

What recruiters actually check

• Total hours and their breakdown: total time, PIC, multi-pilot, time on type, night and IFR. They must match your application form to the minute.
• Recent experience: hours and sectors in the last 6 or 12 months, and your landings in the last 90 days.
• Consistency: aircraft types spelled the same way, ICAO codes, UTC times, totals carried forward correctly from page to page.
• Signatures: every completed page signed by you; instructor and examiner endorsements where they belong.
• Certification: some airlines ask for pages signed and stamped by your current or previous operator, your training organisation or your authority.

Prepare your logbook: a checklist

1. Re-add every column — or let a digital logbook do it. A single carried-forward error makes recruiters doubt every total that follows.
2. Match your application form. Before submitting, copy your totals straight from the logbook, not from memory.
3. Sign every complete page.
4. Check endorsements: skill tests, proficiency checks and PICUS time should carry the relevant signatures or remarks.
5. Prepare a summary page with totals by aircraft type, function and condition. Many airlines provide their own form; fill it from the logbook.
6. Get pages stamped early if the airline asks for certified pages — crew records departments can take weeks.

Stamped and certified pages

Some airlines want proof from a third party that the flights on your pages are real. Usually that means pages signed and stamped by the crew records or flight operations department of your operator, the head of training of your ATO or flight school, or your authority.

With a paper logbook you hand the book over or post photocopies. With The Pilot Log you send a secure link: the organisation sees only the pages you choose, signs and stamps them online without an account — or stamps them in person on your phone. Every stamp appears on your PDF with a verification code that the recruiter can check at thepilotlog.com/verify. Full details in stamped logbook pages.

Bringing a digital logbook to an interview

Many airlines now accept electronic logbooks, but read the candidate instructions carefully. In practice:

• Bring a printed copy of the logbook in the EASA page layout, with each page signed — and the PDF on a USB stick or ready to email if they ask for it.
• Check the airline’s format requirements. Some want the full logbook, others only the last pages and a summary.
• Have the app on your phone in case the recruiter wants to look up a specific flight.
• If you moved from paper, bring the paper logbooks too: the digital logbook starts with totals carried forward from them.

The Pilot Log exports a print-ready PDF of the whole logbook in the classic EASA / Jeppesen-style layout, with a cover page, your signature on every page, the stamps of the organisations that certified your pages and their verification codes.

Mistakes that cost candidates points

• Totals that do not add up, or do not match the application form.
• Times in local time instead of UTC, or mixed formats.
• Missing signatures on complete pages.
• PIC time claimed for flights that do not qualify (for example dual instruction).
• Corrections made with correction fluid or overwritten figures. On paper, strike through neatly and initial; in a digital logbook, use a correction that keeps the history.
• Bringing a spreadsheet instead of a logbook.

On the day

Bring the logbook (printed and digital), your licence, medical certificate and the summary page. Know your numbers: total time, PIC, time on type and recent hours. If a recruiter asks about an entry, you should be able to find it in seconds.

Related: how to fill in an EASA pilot logbook and is a digital logbook valid under EASA FCL.050?