How to Research an Airline Before Your Interview: Finance and Product

Most pilots prepare for airline interviews backwards. They memorise questions, practise answers, work with their friends, and then they fail. The step they missed is the most fundamental one: understanding who they are actually talking to.

Over 15 years, I have sat on both sides of the interview table. The pilots who succeed are not the ones with the best flying skills or the most impressive CVs. They are the ones who understand their recruiter better than anyone else in that waiting room. And part of understanding your recruiter means understanding the airline they work for.

At Airline Selection Programme, we spent years refining a research methodology that works for any airline, anywhere in the world. We call it the four pillars of airline research. Four strategic lenses that help you build structure in your approach and demonstrate your knowledge with poise.

This post covers the first two: Finance and Product. The third and fourth pillars, the Employee and the Environment, are covered in the next post.

Understanding an airline's financial position tells you a great deal about the challenges it may be facing, challenges that will become yours as an employee. There are three key figures to know: turnover, net profit, and net debt. And two critical ratios: net profit margin and debt repayment time.

These numbers reveal the airline's health in a way that is clear and allows you to compare it easily with competitors. Every publicly traded airline publishes an annual report. It is free on their website. That is your goldmine.

But knowing the numbers is only the beginning. The real skill is knowing how to use them in your interview, and that depends entirely on which airline you are applying to.

When approaching a financially strong airline like Ryanair, which consistently posts net profit margins above 12% and often above 15%, you would praise their financial performance and explain what it means to you personally. A profitable airline is one you can build a full career with. This also signals to the recruiter that you are there to stay, which is exactly what they want to hear.

With a legacy carrier like Air France or Lufthansa, the logic is different. These airlines operate on tighter margins, so you would not lead with financial performance. You would focus on what they represent: their mission, their history, the standard of excellence they embody, what it has meant to you since you were young.

With an airline facing temporary difficulty: Wizz Air managing through engine challenges, or SAS being integrated into the Air France KLM group, you would show that you understand why the degraded performance happened, that you believe in their long-term strategy, and that you want to be part of a better tomorrow.

This is the art of the interview. You can be completely sincere at Ryanair one day and Air France the next, each time adjusting the lens to something different, each time giving your recruiter proper perspective. A poorly researched cover letter usually reflects a candidate who has not done the work yet. The level of research you have done shows before you even walk into the room.

This pillar is about how the airline positions itself in the market, what it is investing in, and how it competes.

Air France has invested heavily in La Première, their ultra-premium first class. They have revamped their lounges, introduced free high-speed internet on board, and are competing against Emirates not on price but on service, personalisation, and a high-end French touch. British Airways has strengthened their premium cabins by increasing business class capacity, doubling down on where their profitability comes from. Low-cost carriers play a different game entirely: they compete on price, efficiency, and punctuality, minimising complexity to keep costs low.

When you walk into an interview, you need to know what the airline is investing in, how they position themselves, and who they are competing against. When they ask why you want to join them, or what challenges you think they face, your answer needs to reflect that you understand their product strategy inside out. You are applying to this airline, with this approach to the market, and you can name the initiatives that prove it.

Finance and Product are the foundation of your airline research. They tell you how the airline makes money and how it competes. But there are two more pillars that matter just as much in the interview room: how the airline works with its people, and how it is responding to the environmental pressures reshaping the industry.

The next post covers both. In the meantime, if you want to go deeper into the full methodology now, Advanced Interview Course includes a complete module on airline research, with the exact frameworks, figures, and practice scenarios we use with our clients.

→ Find out more about our Advanced Interview Course