The Riyadh Air pilot interview, stage by stage

Riyadh Air publishes no selection process: no stages, no named test, no vendor, no pass mark, no simulator profile. What candidates describe, across two forum threads running from July 2025 to September 2026, is four things in this order: a recorded video assessment run by an outside platform, a psychometric and CRM block, a competency interview, and a 787 simulator with a technical panel. Every figure below is marked as published by Riyadh Air, reported by candidates, or ours, with the day it was read. Where the reports disagree, both versions are given, and where a claim rests on one person that is said rather than hidden. This matters more here than in the other four packs, because the evidence base is thinner and most of what is written about Riyadh Air selection elsewhere cites nobody at all.

If your date is inside 3 weeks, start here

Video assessment invited: it is recorded, it is machine scored, and it starts almost immediately after you open the link. Set up somewhere quiet in the shirt you would wear to an interview before you click, because several candidates opened it on a layover in a t-shirt and could not stop it. Then drill the ATPL block against a clock: the 2026 sitting was 10 questions in 6 minutes, which is 36 seconds each, so it is recall speed and not thinking time. The Riyadh Air pack runs them at that clock and the stage one sitting marks itself. Psychometric block invited: it is about two hours in the one report that times it, and every part of it improves with timed practice. The Riyadh Air pack. Simulator and panel invited: nobody in either thread has ever described the profile, so prepare the panel, which is documented, and fly the generic screening profile in the Riyadh Air pack as a raw data exercise. The panel questions that are reported are in the Riyadh Air pack and the Riyadh Air pack, and the single reported list is technical about your own current aircraft, not about the 787.

First: is Riyadh Air hiring, and for what

On 21 September 2026 the pilot job board at pilots-riyadhair.icims.com listed 7 pilot vacancies: Direct Entry Captain A321, First Officer A321, A321 Cadre Check Pilot, Flight Instructor Simulator A321, Technical Pilot Boeing, First Officer B787 and Direct Entry Captain B787. Two of those are new since this pack last checked the board on 6 September 2026: the A321 line captain and line first officer roles. Until then the Airbus vacancies were trainers and check pilots, which is a fleet being prepared; line seats mean it is being crewed. A candidate posted on 17 September 2026 that an advert had appeared for normal line captains and first officers on the 321, which is the same change seen from the other side. The practical consequence is that the Airbus door is the wider one, and by a margin worth knowing before you choose which requisition to apply to.

The A321 first officer posting asks for a minimum 1500 hours total flying time with multi-crew, multi-engine jet aircraft, only time in the operating seat counted, not simulator, flight engineer or second officer time; a valid ICAO ATPL, an unrestricted class one medical certificate, and ICAO English level 4 or higher; and a minimum of 150 hours within the last 12 months prior to joining. The 787 first officer posting asks for a minimum 2000 hours total flying time with multi-crew, multi-engine jet aircraft, the same operating seat rule, a valid ICAO ATPL, an unrestricted class one medical certificate and ICAO English level 4 or above. So the Airbus seat opens 500 hours earlier. The 787 first officer text as read on 21 September 2026 carries no recency line, where the A321 first officer text asks for 150 hours in the last 12 months. That is 1 fewer stated condition on the Boeing seat, and it is the kind of line that gets added back without notice, so check both on the day you apply.

The A321 captain posting asks for a minimum of 5,000 hours total on multi-crew, multi-engine aircraft including at least 1,500 hours of recent command on Airbus aircraft, a valid ICAO ATPL, an unrestricted class one medical, ICAO English level 5 or higher, and a minimum of 150 hours in command within the last 12 months before joining. The 787 captain posting asks for 6,000 hours total including at least 2,000 hours of recent command on widebody aircraft, with only time in the operating seat of turbojet aircraft considered, and the same licence, medical, English level 5 and 150 hour recency lines. A captain who is 1,000 hours short of the 787 line and holds Airbus command may be inside the A321 one.

One requirement is read wrong more often than any other, so it is worth stating posting by posting from the live text rather than from a republication. The 787 first officer posting says ICAO English level 4 or above. The A321 first officer posting says level 4 or higher. The 787 captain posting says level 5 or higher. The A321 captain posting says the same. Several sites give level 5 as the requirement for everybody. It is the captain requirement. Read it from the live posting on the day you apply, not from this page and not from anywhere else, because the postings are edited without notice.

The pilot job board carries Riyadh Air’s own warning that there have been fraudulent websites or links that ask individuals to pay monetary fees when applying for jobs at Riyadh Air through unofficial channels or websites, and that Riyadh Air will only engage with potential applicants through its official channels and would never request any payments or personal bank details during the application process. Flight deck applications run through pilots-riyadhair.icims.com and not through the main careers site. Nobody legitimate asks you to pay to be considered.

Three things about the board itself are worth knowing before you choose a requisition. Technical Pilot Airbus was listed on 6 September 2026 and is gone on 21 September, so roles come off as well as on. Applicants report that the airline moves files between requisitions rather than making you reapply: 1 candidate relaying an email in September 2025 was told to apply as normal and that his file would be moved to the Airbus application, and a candidate in March 2026 found his 787 application had been moved to an A321 requisition. A status of transferred to a new opportunity is that happening, and at least 1 candidate read it as a rejection. On age, 2 posters in August and October 2025 give a limit of 59, 1 explaining it as Saudi calendar age 60 with extensions to 65 Gregorian. Neither cites a document. No age limit is published on any pilot posting. So treat 59 as a thing to ask the recruiter about rather than a rule to rule yourself out on.

A framing point that dates half of what you will read

Riyadh Air is an operating airline. Its inaugural flight, announced through the Saudi Press Agency, was RX401 from King Khalid International Airport to London Heathrow on 10 June 2026, flown by a Boeing 787-9, and the same announcement describes the airline as a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund. A candidate who attended the airline’s own roadshow on 3 April 2026 recorded that on that date the operation was a single daily flight to Heathrow on a leased Oman Air 787 crewed by 3 captains with no first officers, its own fleet was zero, about 120 pilots were on strength and the target for 2026 was nearly 250. Those 2 things are not in conflict. The Heathrow flying before June 2026 was the staff programme covered in the Riyadh Air pack, not public revenue service, which is why an attendee in April could watch a daily Heathrow departure at an airline that had not yet launched. An answer built around helping them launch is out of date, and an answer built on the 2023 press releases is further out still. You are applying to an airline that is flying and that is now crewing a second fleet.

Stage 1: the recorded video assessment

Stage one is a recorded video assessment run by an outside platform called MakiPeople, sent by email with a deadline to complete it. It is machine scored, there is nobody on the other end, every step is on a timer that does not stop, and candidates are monitored through the webcam. The deadline has lengthened over time: 7 days in August 2025, 10 days in September 2025, 20 days in September 2026. One candidate asked for an extension in August 2025 and was told it could not be postponed. Treat the platform name as durable and the clocks as perishable: the same platform has run this stage since at least August 2025, and the shape of the test has changed inside it.

That change is the single most important thing on this page, because almost everything written about this stage describes the older version. Every 2025 account describes a 15 minute test in 3 sections: motivation, 2 questions, 6 minutes; technical ATPL knowledge, 5 questions, about 3 minutes; and a closing English speaking question, with 2 recordings allowed and the system choosing for you if you do not. The one 2026 account, from a candidate who sat it on 10 August 2026, describes 20 to 25 minutes: 2 minutes per motivation question with multiple recordings, then 10 ATPL questions in 6 minutes, then 1 minute to prepare and 2 minutes to answer a closing question with 2 attempts. Prepare for the 2026 shape. If you meet the 2025 shape on the day it is the easier one, and the reverse is not true.

The same trap is raised by 3 posters inside a 6 day window in late August and early September 2025. The first page does not say it will be a recorded video interview. 1 describes it starting about 15 seconds after he opened it, on a layover, in a casual t-shirt; a second was caught in a t-shirt the same week; a third was asking in advance whether the machine would notice what he was wearing. A fourth, on 31 October 2025, had the platform freeze on the first ATPL question and could not submit a single answer. An email address for the platform appears in the invitation and 1 candidate reports a quick reply from it; another found nobody to contact. The single 2026 account does not mention any of this, so it is a 2025 pattern nobody has retested. Open the link only when you are set up, and screenshot anything that goes wrong at the time.

The motivation questions reported are narrow and repeat across both years: what motivates you; why you want to join Riyadh Air, or what draws you to Riyadh Air as a pilot; what you can bring to the airline, or how you can contribute to Riyadh Air’s success; and a closing question asking you to describe yourself as something other than a pilot. Three answers, each under 2 minutes, cover every version of that list. The Riyadh Air pack has them worked, and the closing question is the one candidates fumble because it is the only one that is not about flying.

The ATPL block is the part that catches people, and it is the part this pack can actually drill. The questions candidates recall are general ATPL, pitched at a level that one experienced captain complained was more appropriate for a cadet: reading the jet stream on a chart, what the altimeter reads when landing in hot weather, aquaplaning, the effect of high temperature on takeoff performance, what happens to the takeoff run as weight increases, the function of the stator vanes in a compressor, what to do if fuel temperature decreases, weather in a temperature inversion, the effect of true airspeed in a climb at constant indicated airspeed, definitions, turbulence, V1, isobars, and volcanic ash. The 2026 sitting adds the effect of a forward centre of gravity on cruise performance, the primary function of the bleed air system, what to do on suspecting flight into volcanic ash, when holdover time ends, the primary cause of a temperature inversion in the troposphere, what the course deviation indicator shows on a VOR receiver, what V1 represents, and what Mach number refers to. That is not a syllabus, it is the questions people remembered, and it is the closest thing to one that exists. The Riyadh Air pack drills them against the clock.

One more thing about the result, because the thread is full of people misreading it. Two candidates report hearing back within 30 minutes to an hour, and one poster pointed out in September 2025 that this is a confirmation of receipt and not a pass. Set against it: silence for 2 weeks, 6 weeks, and in one case 5 months with the portal still showing under review. One candidate found the portal showing his application successful with no email ever sent. Another found his application moved from under review to transferred to a new opportunity and read it as a rejection; a candidate in March 2026 reports the same words meaning he had been moved to the A321 requisition. So a fast reply is a receipt, silence is normal, and a status change is not necessarily bad news. Check the portal rather than the inbox.

Stage 2: psychometric and CRM testing

No vendor, structure or pass mark is published. One candidate times the online psychometric block at about 2 hours. One names the vendor as Symbiotics. One describes the stage as a personality questionnaire, a CRM questionnaire in a what would you do shape, and a psychometric assessment run as 2 identical passes looking for a learning curve. One reports the order as psychometrics and a competency interview first, then the simulator. Every one of those is a single poster. The vendor name and the 2 identical passes in particular rest on 1 person each and are not corroborated anywhere in either thread, so treat them as leads rather than facts. What is not in doubt is that a timed aptitude and personality block exists and sits before the simulator. All of it is trainable, which is the only part of this stage worth acting on: a candidate who has done timed practice scores visibly better than one walking in cold. The Riyadh Air pack breaks down the families and gives you drills; the lab holds the tracking, multitasking and memory exercises and the personality questionnaire, which gives you a consistency debrief and no score, because no score is claimable.

Three separate posters, in August, September and October 2025, independently name the same third party pilot assessment site as matching what they were asked at stage one, and 1 of them says he used it and passed. That is the most corroborated preparation claim in either thread and this pack will not name a competitor, so take the useful half instead: all 3 of those posters sat the 15 minute 2025 test. Whatever that site matched, it matched the format that has since changed. Check any outside material against the 2026 shape before you trust it, including this page.

Stage 3: the competency interview

Two candidates describe the first live interview consistently, in July and August 2025. It runs on Microsoft Teams with 2 people, one from talent acquisition and one captain; you introduce yourself and confirm your CV, in one account in 3 minutes; they ask your motivation for Riyadh Air and whether you are willing to move; and one candidate counts no more than 5 questions in under half an hour, with the terms and conditions explained at the end. The questions reported are what the airline offers you and what you are looking for, and what you would do if you did not get a commuting contract. That last question is worth pausing on, and it is dealt with in full at the end of this module: the commuting contract no longer exists, which changes the answer. The Riyadh Air pack has the 3 minute CV brief worked out, which is the part candidates most often ramble through.

Stage 4: the simulator and the technical panel

The simulator, and the honest position on it

Riyadh Air publishes nothing about the simulator. What candidates establish is the aircraft and the place: a 787, in Dubai or at a London airport, with the London airport given as Heathrow in the 2025 accounts and Gatwick in a May 2026 one. 1 second hand report says candidates arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation, sourced to a company video interview rather than to anyone who travelled. Beyond that there is nothing, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. The simulator profile is asked for by name in July 2025 and again in May 2026, and on neither occasion, nor anywhere between, does a poster answer it. No candidate in either thread describes what they flew, and there is no first hand account of a pass or a failure in the box. So this pack does not tell you Riyadh Air’s profile, because nobody outside the airline appears to have written it down. What the Riyadh Air pack gives you instead is the shape every widebody screening profile in this industry is built from, flown raw data, plus the briefing discipline and the tolerances assessors hold across the Gulf, and it says on its face that this is generic. Take the airport from your own invitation, and budget for the trip when you accept the date.

The technical panel

There is no account in either thread of anyone passing or failing the simulator, but 2 posters in July 2025 report failing the process, neither saying at which stage: 1 with 12,000 hours total and 5,000 in command on the 787, 1 with more than 20,000 hours and TRI on the 777 and the 787. Both are worth knowing for 1 reason. Hours do not carry this selection on their own, and an experienced pilot who treats any stage of it as a formality is the profile in those 2 posts.

Two independent sources describe who sits on it, in August 2025 and April 2026, and they agree: trainers who came from Emirates, Qatar and Cathay, at TRI and TRE level. One puts it plainly, that they will know quickly whether you are operating on knowledge or on confidence. The candidate who sat it in November 2025 found it about 30 minutes and very relaxed. Relaxed and searching are not opposites, and the question list below is the reason to take the second word seriously.

That candidate posted what he was asked: memory items, unreliable airspeed and the stabiliser; tell us about yourself; where you did your flight training; explain how holdover time works; what the difference is between the 777 and the 787 on unreliable airspeed; tell me about a time you flew with a difficult senior first officer; why you are coming to Riyadh Air; and whether your family will stay in your country or move to Riyadh. An earlier candidate describes the same interview in shape rather than in questions: tell me about a time questions, whether anything has ever happened on a flight and what you did, and technical questions about your current aircraft, with the advice not to try to fool them and to say so when you do not know. That is 1 person’s list and it is the only one that exists, so do not learn it as the paper. Read what it tells you about the shape instead. The technical questions followed that candidate’s own memory items and his own types, and 1 of them asked him to compare the 777 and the 787, which were both his. A panel of trainers from 3 different airlines is assessing pilots off many types, so prepare your own type to the standard you would want in a licence proficiency check oral, and expect the difference between 2 types you have flown to be a fair question. The Riyadh Air pack has the event question and a full threat and error management answer, and the teach back, which is the format the difference question is really testing.

The roadshow attendee in April 2026 records two things that sit after this stage: a regulator oral with GACA follows the offer, described as being like a type ride and certificate oral and not trivial; and a first officer joining with a full ATPL and command experience still sits an ATPL programme of about 1,200 questions, because the test follows the seat and not the licence. Both are single sourced and both are worth asking about in writing before you resign.

The offer, and what follows it

One candidate describes the post offer sequence, in August 2025: access to the company’s own site with tasks on it, from reading documents to listing where you would like to live and what matters to you, then medical tests in your home country for the visa, then travel to Riyadh for the iqama, the class 1 medical and a bank account, all arranged by the company, with 30 days of housing provided and your own arrangements after that. An earlier post says no company accommodation is provided, which is reconcilable as 30 days of transitional housing but is not stated that way by either of them. Results after the simulator and the panel came in 8 to 10 days in that account. The roadshow attendee notes that the contract is signed before the medical at the airline’s own centre, and that some candidates chose to take a medical beforehand for that reason.

The commuting contract, and why it is the most important thing here

Riyadh Air states in both first officer postings that the position is based in Riyadh and offers a full-time and lifestyle rostering option upon meeting defined criteria and subject to availability. That single sentence is the only published support anything in this section has, and it is worth reading closely. The airline names the lifestyle roster itself, so it is not only a forum claim; it says Riyadh is the base; and it makes the roster conditional twice over, on meeting criteria and on availability. Everything else below comes from candidates.

This is the part of the Riyadh Air picture where the public understanding is most out of date, and the part that changes whether the job is worth having. The first terms post, on 1 July 2025, reported a commuting roster of 14 days on and 14 days off as confirmed by Riyadh Air, available after probation and training and allocated by seniority. the question of what you would do without a commuting contract was being asked at interview. Posters went on asking about that roster for months afterwards. Then a candidate who attended the airline’s roadshow at Gatwick on 3 April 2026 transcribed the slides on 23 April. On the commuting contract, both rosters: none. Riyadh is your base. The alternative on offer is called the Lifestyle Roster, and the slides state that it is not 14 on and 14 off: it is a fixed pattern of 14 days off per cycle, 17 on and 14 off in a 31 day month, which works out at about 7 months of the year, with roughly 177 days off against 103 on the normal roster. It is not a commuting contract in the sense the forum meant, and it is not free.

The same slides price it. A captain on the normal roster: basic SAR 48,700, a flight pay guarantee of 75 hours at SAR 18,750, housing SAR 20,000 and transport SAR 4,870, about USD 23,200 a month all in. The same captain on the Lifestyle Roster: basic SAR 40,000, a guarantee of 60 hours at SAR 15,000, housing SAR 8,400 and transport SAR 2,000, about USD 16,440. The difference is USD 81,200 a year. For a first officer the figures are SAR 33,556 and SAR 28,000 basic, about USD 17,100 against USD 12,360 a month, a difference of USD 56,900 a year. Annual leave on the normal roster is 42 days; on the Lifestyle Roster it is nil, the days off being the leave. The Lifestyle Roster is capped at 25 percent of pilots, allocated by join date seniority, and is available only after training and 100 hours. So the trade is roughly 70 extra days at home for roughly a third of the money, it is rationed, and you cannot count on getting it. Anyone planning to commute should price the Lifestyle Roster figures, not the headline ones, and should assume they may spend a year or more on the normal roster first.

The rest of the slides, identical on both rosters: education at SAR 60,000 per child per year for up to 4 children aged 4 to 22 at any school worldwide; BUPA medical cover for the family; annual tickets for the pilot, spouse and 4 children; staff travel through MyIDTravel including the Air France KLM and Lufthansa groups and excluding Emirates and Etihad. All figures tax free. Annual increases of 3 percent for captains and 2 percent for first officers. A bond of USD 36,000 clawed back over 36 months on early exit. The flight pay guarantee runs only to December 2026. Internal promotion was presented as not yet decided, with a likely minimum of 2,000 hours on each seat and fleet before moving, and external hiring continuing alongside. Two of those deserve a candidate’s attention rather than a recruiter’s. The guarantee ending in December 2026 is what turns a quoted monthly figure into an estimate, because after it the flying pay depends on the flying, and this is an airline still building a network. And the promotion path being undecided while the airline hires externally is the difference between a first officer seat that leads somewhere and one that does not.

Two more things belong beside those figures, because they decide what the money is worth. The slides say all figures are tax free and that pay is pegged to the US dollar with no exchange rate protection, and a poster in August 2025 says there is no pension. On the other side of the ledger, a poster in August 2025 relayed from a friend resident in Riyadh for 4 or 5 years that a 4 bedroom apartment runs about SAR 375,000 a year and a good British school about SAR 100,000, with a normal one about SAR 70,000. That is second hand and it is 1 person, so treat it as a prompt rather than a figure. But hold it against the slides: captain housing of SAR 20,000 a month is SAR 240,000 a year, and education is SAR 60,000 per child. If that friend is right about the top of the market, the housing allowance covers roughly two thirds of that apartment and the education allowance roughly half of that school. Price your own version before you resign, because the allowance is not the cost.

On the roster itself, the slides note that public holiday entitlement on the Lifestyle Roster was not confirmed in writing, which is a caveat on the days off figure that sells it. On promotion, the path presented was A321LR or 787 first officer, then A321LR captain, then A350 or 787 captain, with a likely minimum of 2,000 hours on each seat and fleet and external hiring continuing alongside. Two posters, 1 claiming a management source and 1 setting out his own reading of Saudia’s history of expatriate first officer upgrades, both conclude that an expatriate first officer should not assume a command here. Riyadh Air publishes nothing on upgrade at all, and the roadshow presented promotion as not yet decided. Neither of those posters speaks for the airline. What they establish is that this is the question to put in writing before you sign, and that nobody has yet been given an answer worth relying on.

Earlier pay figures circulate widely and most of them are wrong. The 1 July 2025 post gave a captain basic of USD 15,500 and was corrected the next day by a second interviewee to SAR 48,750, about USD 13,000, which is what the April 2026 slides confirm. The 2025 posts also give first officers a higher hourly rate than captains, which a poster flagged as implausible at the time and which the 2026 figures reverse. Quote the April 2026 numbers, and quote them as what an attendee transcribed from the airline’s slides. Riyadh Air publishes no pay figure, no roster pattern and no benefit.

What the sources disagree on

Stated rather than resolved, so you can decide what to prepare for: whether stage one is 15 minutes with 5 ATPL questions or 20 to 25 minutes with 10, which is a 2025 against 2026 difference rather than a contradiction; whether the closing English section is 2 minutes or 6; whether 2 recordings are allowed or more; whether anyone can be reached when the platform fails; whether a fast reply after stage one is a result or a receipt; whether the simulator is at Heathrow or Gatwick; whether housing at joining is 30 days or none; whether staff travel applies on the lifestyle roster, which the 2025 posts deny and the 2026 slides include; whether a bond exists, absent from every 2025 terms post and USD 36,000 in the 2026 slides; and the psychometric vendor, named once and nowhere else. Where two versions exist, prepare for the harder one: 10 ATPL questions in 6 minutes, 2 recordings only, and a technical panel that follows your own type wherever you are weakest on it.

Read from Riyadh Air’s own pilot job board on 21 September 2026. Candidate reports are from two PPRuNe threads spanning July 2025 to September 2026, and the count of people behind each claim is given wherever it is small. Nothing here is affiliated with or endorsed by Riyadh Air.