The average age of a pilot who holds a medical certificate is 39.6 years.
That’s according to the 2022 Aerospace Medical Certification Statistical Handbook from the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, which was released in November 2023.
Just seven years ago, the average age was 43, FAA officials note.
Using medical certification records from 2017 to 2022, the FAA reports that as of Dec. 31, 2022:
- There were 589,242 medically certified airmen age 16 and older
- 50.1% were issued a first-class medical certificate
- 15.8% were issued a second-class medical certificate
- 34.1% were issued a third-class medical certificate
Across all medical classes, the handbook reveals that:
- 90.8% of pilots with a medical certificate were male and 9.2% were female
- Nearly 5.9% of pilots issued certificates required a Special Issuance
- The most-reported medical condition was hypertension treated with medication, reported among 6.3% of the population
The handbook also notes that 434,674 medical applications were processed in 2022, up 6.4% from the 408,679 applications processed in 2021.
For those who enjoy taking a deep dive into statistics, this report is for you. It is packed with charts that break down everything from a state by state charting of medical class, along with the gender of pilots, to graphs depicting the ages, heights, and weights of all pilots.
There’s also a list of the top 15 reported medical conditions, ranging from hypertension (at #1) to allergies, hernias, kidney stones, and sleep apnea.
The 2022 handbook notes that the demographics of active pilots have changed drastically in the last seven years, specifically within the first- and third-class populations.
For instance, “there is a significant increase in the overall number of first-class active airmen with a noteworthy decrease in the mean age within this group,” it notes.
“Mean age has generally decreased across all classes from 2016 to 2022, indicating a potential shift towards younger airmen,” the handbook stated.
“The composition of the overall airmen population is also changing with more first-class airmen and less third-class airmen. Overall, the percent of females also increased by nearly 3% over this seven-year time period.”
The drop in third-class medicals — especially in pilots with special issuances — is attributed to BasicMed, which took off in May 2017.
“While airmen come and go from the certificated population routinely, this section demonstrates the largely decreasing trends in active third-class airmen over the last seven years,” the report notes. “In fact, the decrease in population is seen almost immediately after the BasicMed inception. The number of first-class airmen becomes the largest group after 2016, overtaking third-class in numbers beginning in 2018.”
You can read the full handbook at FAA.gov.
This agency now has set out to eliminate older pilots, creating and enforcing policies that were meant for good, yet through bureaucratic delays and removing the decisions from open critique allows the removal of pilot licenses from those meant to be able to operate. Basic Med, and online applications are still met with 6 month plus delays in review.
I think that the requirements are too strict for some. People get busy with their jobs and responsibilities. That doesn’t change anything with a person’s health as a whole. Just because one let their medical expire is not a reason to denie a new check up. It’s very costly for someone who owns an airplane!! The accident rate is going up with the young pilots!! The old timers have a lot of knowledge left to fly an airplane safely. Too many regulations by inexperienced people and Doctors.
This report totally disregards BasicMed to reach the wrong conclusion. I wonder how many tax dollars were wasted on this flawed report. How many other government studies have similar flaws? Follow the (flawed) science?
I’ve been flying under BasicMed rules since 2017, when I let my 3rd class medical lapse, as are a lot of other non-commercial pilots I know.
It would be interesting to see the average age of pilots if you included BasicMed in your statistics. I suspect it would go way up.
I would add those who have switched to LSA as well, that is what I did since I could not qualify for Basic Med. There could be a good number of us older pilots who did not meet the 10 year deadline on the last 3rd class to qualify. All I can say about that is that the Senetor who pushed that limit did not survive his next election but now he runs NASA.
Cost is by far the biggest roadblock.Students should be able to ride along as a passenger for free while another is taking a lesson.
rent a plane $140hr. CFI$75hr. plus.Taking up to 30to40hrs to solo-80to90 for PP ck ride alot of work needs to be done.
Agree with Speed. “There are 11,000,000,000 cars on the road but we didn’t count the ones with tinted windows.” Conclusion is based on incomplete data, hence unreliable.
Unfortunately there is no correction factor for the myriad of misdiagnoses and improper treatments.
Not that a chart means much without regulatory, economics, inflation and general national and airport atmosphere adjustments.
Good grief. There is no mention of BasicMed. I suspect the data is skewed because of this oversight I suspect that the reality is that older pilots like me are flying with BasicMed and therefore not captured in this report. So I believe the statement regarding pilot population getting younger is misleading.
Basic med is mentioned as a reason for 3rd class physicals diminishing. Seems like the numbers of us using basic med would be easy to track—it’s on the FAA’s airman certification web pages.
BasicMed obviously effected. Too bad they didn’t give stats about how many of us have gone that route. I know retired ATP career military and airline types flying under it now as well as a bunch of GA airport bums like me. I let my Special Issuance lapse and went Basic Med the year it became law. Ironic the FAA could get ther act together and fix it without the law.
Since the FAA removed the mission to promote aviation…..