EASA Pilot Logbook: How to Prepare for an Airline Assessment

An in-depth guide for EASA pilots on FCL.050, flight-time records, PICUS, SPIC, co-pilot time, FSTD entries and preparing a logbook for airline selection.

When preparing for an airline assessment, your logbook should do more than show how many hours you have flown. It should provide a clear and reliable record of how that experience was accumulated and allow the figures you present to an operator to be traced back to the underlying flight-time record.

For pilots operating within the EASA Part-FCL framework, the starting point is FCL.050 — Recording of flight time. From there, good preparation means checking the continuity of your records, reconciling accumulated totals, understanding how different pilot functions have been recorded and making sure the figures on an airline application can be supported.

For a professional pilot with several thousand hours, multiple operators, PICUS, FSTD records or a mixture of paper and electronic logbooks, that review can be more involved than simply checking the final total.

Before submitting an application or attending an assessment, you should be able to answer three questions confidently:

Are my flight-time records complete? Do the totals reconcile? Can I explain how the figures I have supplied to the airline were calculated?

If the answer to all three is yes, you are starting from a strong position.

What Does FCL.050 Require?

FCL.050 itself is concise. Under Annex I (Part-FCL) to Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011, a pilot must keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown, in a form and manner established by the competent authority. The current consolidated regulation reflects amendments in force in 2026.

That final point matters. There is not one commercial logbook product or one particular layout that automatically becomes the correct “EASA logbook” for every licence holder. Part-FCL establishes the framework, while the relevant competent authority remains important when considering the acceptable form and manner of the record.

It is also worth distinguishing FCL.050 from AMC1 FCL.050.

FCL.050 establishes the regulatory requirement. The Acceptable Means of Compliance provides the more detailed framework for an accepted means of complying with that requirement.

EASA describes AMC as non-binding material that provides an accepted means of demonstrating compliance. Following an EASA AMC provides a presumption of compliance, although another means of compliance may be possible through the applicable process.

For most pilots reviewing their flight-time records, AMC1 FCL.050 is therefore the practical reference point.

What Should an EASA Flight-Time Record Show?

AMC1 FCL.050 sets out the information that should form part of the record.

For an individual flight, this includes information such as the PIC, date, departure and arrival places and times, aircraft type and registration, total flight time and accumulated total flight time. It also provides for operational conditions such as night and IFR and for pilot functions including PIC, solo, SPIC, PICUS, co-pilot, cruise-relief co-pilot, dual, FI and FE. Applicable FSTD sessions have their own recording information.

That framework is important, but preparing a logbook for airline selection introduces another consideration:

Can somebody looking at the complete record understand how your experience fits together?

A logbook can contain the expected information and still have accumulated totals that do not reconcile, an incorrect historic opening balance, duplicated entries following an electronic import or ambiguity over how a particular period of experience has been classified.

This is why preparing an EASA pilot logbook for an airline assessment should involve more than checking that the columns are complete.

1. Start With the Complete Flying Record

Rather than beginning with the final page, look at your flying history as one continuous record.

Many professional pilots accumulate experience across several different sources. You may have early handwritten logbooks, an electronic logbook introduced later in your career, operator-maintained records, roster imports and records from training organisations. You may also have changed operators, aircraft types or logging systems several times.

Each transition is a potential point at which a discrepancy can enter the record.

A paper logbook may have been transferred to an electronic system using opening balances rather than individual flight entries. A historical total may have been placed in the wrong category. An operator import may have created duplicate sectors. PICUS information may not have transferred cleanly. An aircraft variant may have been coded differently between two systems.

None of these necessarily produces an obviously unrealistic grand total.

That is why a useful review asks something more demanding than:

“Does my total look about right?”

It asks:

“Can I trace how that total was built?”

If you have 6,000 hours today, you should be able to follow the progression of the record from the beginning of your flying through to those 6,000 hours without unexplained breaks or changes in the way the figures have been calculated.

That continuity is one of the areas PilotAudit examines during a Professional Pilot Logbook Audit. Rather than reviewing only the final totals, we look for inconsistencies, category discrepancies, missing or unclear entries and other areas that may require the pilot's attention.

2. Reconcile the Totals Before You Use Them on an Airline Application

Total flight time is usually only one of the figures an airline will want.

Depending on the operator and the position, you may be asked for command experience, PICUS, co-pilot time, multi-pilot experience, time on type, turbine experience, IFR, night or other categories relevant to the vacancy.

This creates an important distinction:

An airline application category is not necessarily the same thing as a column in your logbook.

If an operator asks for “command time”, for example, do not automatically assume that the total appearing in the PIC column is the figure the airline wants. Part-FCL logging provisions determine how flight time is recorded; the operator determines how it wishes experience to be presented for recruitment.

The same principle applies to time on type, multi-pilot experience and any other category defined by the operator.

Read the wording of the application carefully and calculate the figure being requested from the underlying record.

For paper logbooks, accumulated and carried-forward figures deserve particular attention. A simple arithmetic error on one page may be carried forward through every subsequent page even though all the individual flights are correct.

Electronic logbooks remove much of the arithmetic, but they create different risks. Opening balances, imported history, custom aircraft classifications and manually entered adjustments can all affect reports produced years later.

If you would prefer an independent second review before those figures are submitted, PilotAudit's Professional Pilot Logbook Audit includes review of customer-provided flight-time totals, category discrepancies and customer-provided airline application totals.

The goal is not simply to produce another total. It is to understand whether the figure is supported by the record.

3. Understand What Is Actually Inside the PIC Column

For EASA pilots, one of the most important areas to understand is the distinction between PIC, PICUS, SPIC and other time that may be recorded as PIC.

The current AMC1 FCL.050 provides that a licence holder may log as PIC the flight time during which that person acts as PIC. It also contains provisions under which other qualifying flight time may be entered as PIC, subject to the applicable requirements.

That means the number at the bottom of the PIC column does not necessarily describe one single type of operational experience.

PICUS deserves particular attention

PICUS — pilot-in-command under supervision — is familiar to many European airline pilots and is an area where careful record-keeping matters.

Under AMC1 FCL.050, a co-pilot may log qualifying PICUS flight time as PIC where the applicable supervision requirements are satisfied. The relevant PICUS entries are also subject to certification requirements.

This leads to an important recruitment distinction:

PICUS being recorded as PIC within the Part-FCL logging framework does not mean that every airline must treat that experience as unrestricted command time when assessing an application.

If an operator separately asks for PICUS, command time, supervised command or another specific category, follow the definition given by that operator.

The regulatory question of how the flight time is recorded and the recruitment question of how an airline counts the experience are separate.

SPIC follows the same principle

SPIC — student pilot-in-command — also sits within the applicable PIC recording provisions, with the relevant certification requirements.

The important point when reviewing historic records is that the underlying nature of the experience remains identifiable.

This becomes particularly relevant during a paper-to-electronic conversion. A conversion that retains the total but loses the context behind it can make a later airline application considerably more difficult to reconcile.

Co-pilot and cruise-relief co-pilot time

AMC1 FCL.050 also provides for co-pilot flight time where the applicable conditions are met and expressly includes cruise-relief co-pilot within the current pilot-function framework.

For experienced long-haul pilots, these distinctions can become particularly important when moving between operators and completing detailed experience breakdowns.

4. Make Significant Tests and Checks Easy to Trace

Significant training and checking events should remain identifiable within a professional flight-time record.

The EASA logbook framework addresses skill tests, proficiency checks and assessments of competence, rather than the American terminology sometimes found in international aviation material.

Depending on your career, significant events may include a CPL or IR skill test, type rating skill test, ATPL skill test, proficiency checks or relevant assessments of competence.

The point is not to retrospectively fill an old logbook with unnecessary annotations just because an airline assessment is approaching.

It is to confirm that important events forming part of your professional flying history have been recorded appropriately and can be located when required.

When PilotAudit carries out a logbook audit before an assessment or another important career event, significant training and checking entries can form part of the wider consistency review where they appear within the records provided.

5. Treat FSTD Records as FSTD Records

Modern airline pilots accumulate substantial experience in flight simulation training devices, but that experience should remain distinguishable from aircraft flight time.

AMC1 FCL.050 provides separate recording information for applicable FSTD sessions, including the training device, instruction, date, session time and accumulated FSTD time.

During a logbook review, this is worth checking carefully, particularly following data migration or imports from another platform. FSTD entries should not inadvertently inflate aircraft totals, and training sessions should remain identifiable as simulator activity.

The same caution applies when completing an airline application.

If an operator asks for simulator experience, follow the airline's definition. If it asks for aircraft flight time, do not assume every report generated by your electronic logbook has treated FSTD records correctly without checking.

6. Compare Personal Records With Operator-Maintained Records

For pilots working in commercial air transport, your personal logbook may not be the only source of flight-time information.

AMC1 FCL.050 provides for details of flights flown under commercial air transport to be recorded electronically by the operator. Under the applicable AMC, the operator should make the pilot's relevant flight records available to the flight crew member on request.

In practice, an airline pilot may therefore have a personal electronic logbook, earlier paper records, roster-derived data and operator-maintained records covering the same period.

They will often agree.

They do not always agree.

Differences can arise from amended block times, roster imports, duplicated sectors, training sectors, aircraft coding or manual corrections. A personal logbook platform may also categorise an aircraft or pilot function differently from the operator's source system.

If you discover a difference, resist the temptation to force one record to match the other immediately.

First identify why the difference exists.

A professional PilotAudit logbook audit can be particularly useful when several sources need to be compared, because the objective is to identify and flag the source of an inconsistency rather than silently changing unsupported information.

7. Take Extra Care When Moving From Paper to Electronic Records

Moving from a paper logbook to an electronic platform can make a professional flying record considerably easier to search, calculate and maintain.

It can also be the point where historic information is lost.

If only opening totals are transferred, you may preserve the final numbers while losing the ability to search the individual flights behind them. If entries are manually transcribed, a date, aircraft registration or flight-time category can be entered incorrectly. If the conversion process does not preserve important remarks, information identifying PICUS, tests or other significant events can disappear.

For a pilot who expects to use the record throughout a long professional career, an individual-entry conversion provides considerably more useful data than simply entering a collection of historic opening balances.

PilotAudit provides Professional Paper-to-Digital Pilot Logbook Conversion for pilots internationally, including pilots maintaining records within the EASA framework. The service transfers the individual information from the source logbooks into a structured digital record and flags information that cannot be confidently interpreted rather than guessing.

A structured digital record can then be searched, filtered, recalculated and reviewed in ways that are difficult with paper alone.

The original paper records should still be retained. Where a converted electronic record will be relied upon for a particular regulatory or licensing purpose, check the acceptable form and manner with the relevant competent authority.

8. Electronic Logbooks Are Possible, but the Format Still Matters

The EASA framework provides for electronic flight-time records subject to the applicable conditions.

The relevant instructions address matters such as retaining the required information, ensuring records are available when requested and using a format acceptable to the competent authority.

That makes the quality of the underlying data more important than the appearance of a particular PDF.

A beautifully formatted electronic report is of limited value if the historic opening balance was incorrect, PICUS has lost its identifying information or several years of entries cannot be traced back to the source record.

When choosing or reviewing an electronic system, think of the logbook as a long-term professional record, not simply a convenient way to calculate hours.

Accessibility also matters. Part-FCL contains provisions requiring a pilot to present the flight-time record when requested by an authorised representative of the competent authority.

9. Reconcile the Logbook With the Airline Application

Once the flight-time record itself has been reviewed, compare it directly with the application.

Take each significant figure requested by the operator and establish how it was derived.

If the application shows 1,200 hours of command time, you should know which flying makes up that figure.

If it shows 3,400 hours on type, you should understand what has been included.

If PICUS is requested separately, you should be able to identify the relevant experience rather than trying to reconstruct it shortly before the assessment.

This process often exposes perfectly legitimate differences between a logbook and an application. An airline may simply be asking for a narrower definition than the logbook uses.

That is not necessarily a problem.

The important point is:

you understand the difference.

Do not change a logbook merely because an application total is different. Establish first whether the application is measuring something different or whether one of the records is actually incorrect.

For pilots preparing for selection, this is another area where a Professional Pilot Logbook Audit can provide useful independent review. PilotAudit can cross-check customer-provided application totals against the supporting logbook and flag figures or entries that may need further review.

10. Correct Discrepancies Methodically

Finding an error does not mean the logbook is ruined.

Professional flying records can span thousands of sectors and many years. Mistakes happen.

What matters is how they are handled.

If you identify a discrepancy, first establish where it begins. Compare the underlying flight, the previous and subsequent totals and any available supporting records. Determine whether the issue is arithmetic, transcription, classification or an electronic import problem.

Only once the cause is understood should the record be corrected in the appropriate manner.

This is preferable to making a series of unexplained changes immediately before an airline assessment simply to make two totals agree.

Where a question concerns regulatory acceptance, certification or the acceptable form of a record, seek guidance from the relevant competent authority.

PilotAudit can help identify discrepancies and organise the findings, but an independent logbook service does not replace the competent authority.

11. Make the Record Easy to Understand

A flight-time record can be technically correct and still be difficult to review.

Before an airline assessment, consider whether you can quickly locate a particular period of flying, identify where one operator ends and another begins, find significant skill tests and proficiency checks, identify PICUS experience and explain how important application totals were calculated.

You should also be able to distinguish aircraft flight time from FSTD records and, where you have maintained several records, understand how the paper, electronic and operator-held information relates to one another.

A professional logbook does not need excessive decoration.

It needs to be clear, consistent and traceable.

What About UK Pilots?

It is worth being precise about the scope of this guide.

Europe and EASA are not interchangeable terms.

The United Kingdom is no longer part of the EASA system. UK-issued licences sit under the UK regulatory framework rather than current EU Part-FCL requirements.

A pilot holding a UK CAA licence should therefore refer to the applicable UK requirements rather than assuming that every current EASA provision applies.

PilotAudit treats UK CAA and EASA logbook guidance as separate topics for this reason.

When Should You Audit an EASA Pilot Logbook?

The ideal time is before you urgently need it.

A review carried out several weeks or months before an airline assessment gives you time to investigate anything unusual. You may need an older paper record, information from a previous operator, clarification of a PICUS period or time to rebuild an incorrect historic balance.

There is also no reason to limit a professional logbook review to airline recruitment.

Pilots may choose to audit or reconcile their records before a:

• skill test;

• licence or rating application;

• operator change;

• transition to another electronic logbook;

• paper-to-digital conversion; or

• periodic review of a long professional flying history.

A flight-time record becomes more difficult to reconstruct with age. Reviewing it before an important event is considerably easier than discovering a ten-year-old discrepancy when a deadline is approaching.

Professional EASA Logbook Audits and Conversions With PilotAudit

PilotAudit works with pilots across Europe and internationally to audit, reconcile and convert professional flight-time records.

Our role is independent. We are not EASA, a national competent authority, an ATO or an airline recruitment department, and we do not replace regulatory or operator-specific guidance.

What we can do is examine the records provided and help identify the issues pilots often encounter before an important career or licensing event.

Pilots who already maintain digital records can use our Professional Pilot Logbook Audit for an independent review of flight-time totals, categories, application figures, incomplete entries and other areas that may need attention.

Pilots with historic handwritten records can use our Professional Paper-to-Digital Pilot Logbook Conversion to turn individual paper entries into a structured digital record that is easier to search, total, review and maintain.

These services can be useful when preparing for airline selection, skill tests, licence and rating applications, operator changes, record reconciliation or simply bringing a long professional flight history into better order.

A good audit should not simply give you another total.

It should leave you with a better understanding of your own flying record.

EASA Pilot Logbook Checklist Before an Airline Assessment

Before submitting your flight-time figures or attending airline selection, make sure:

• Your complete flying history is accounted for and the continuity of the record makes sense.

• Opening balances and carried-forward totals have been checked.

• Paper, electronic and operator records have been reconciled where they overlap.

• PIC, co-pilot, PICUS and SPIC experience can be identified and explained.

• Cruise-relief co-pilot time has been treated appropriately where applicable.

• Significant skill tests, proficiency checks and assessments of competence can be located.

• FSTD records remain distinct from aircraft flight time.

• Historic imports have been checked for duplicates, missing entries and classification errors.

• Airline application totals have been calculated using the operator's definitions.

• Differences between application figures and logbook figures are understood.

• Original supporting records have been retained where appropriate.

• Any competent-authority or operator-specific requirements have been checked before the records are submitted.

Frequently Asked Questions About EASA Pilot Logbooks

What is the EASA rule for recording flight time?

FCL.050 requires a pilot to keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown in a form and manner established by the competent authority. AMC1 FCL.050 provides detailed acceptable means of compliance concerning the recording of that experience.

Can an EASA pilot use an electronic logbook?

Yes. The EASA framework provides for electronic flight-time records subject to the applicable requirements, including the content of the record and acceptance by the relevant competent authority.

How is PICUS recorded under EASA?

AMC1 FCL.050 provides for qualifying PICUS flight time to be recorded as PIC where the applicable supervision requirements are satisfied. The relevant certification requirements also apply.

Does PICUS automatically count as command time on an airline application?

No.

How qualifying PICUS is recorded under Part-FCL and how an airline defines command experience for recruitment are separate matters. Follow the definition supplied by the operator when completing the application.

How is SPIC recorded?

SPIC falls within the applicable PIC recording provisions, subject to the relevant requirements and certification. The underlying nature of the experience should remain identifiable in the record.

Can cruise-relief co-pilot time be recorded?

The current AMC1 FCL.050 framework expressly includes cruise-relief co-pilot within the pilot-function categories.

Should skill tests and proficiency checks appear in the logbook?

The EASA flight-time recording framework includes provisions relating to skill tests and proficiency checks. Significant checking events should be recorded in accordance with the applicable requirements and remain identifiable within the flight-time record.

Is FSTD time the same as aircraft flight time?

No. Applicable FSTD sessions have separate recording provisions and should remain distinguishable from aircraft flight-time records.

What should I do if my paper and electronic logbooks do not agree?

Do not simply change one total until the records match.

Find where the difference begins and review the underlying entries, opening balances, imports, duplicate flights, pilot-function classifications and FSTD records.

If the source of the difference is difficult to identify, PilotAudit's Professional Pilot Logbook Audit provides an independent review of the records and flags items that may need further investigation.

Should I convert my paper logbooks to digital?

For many professional pilots, a structured electronic record makes a long flying history considerably easier to search, calculate, maintain and review.

An individual-entry conversion also preserves substantially more useful information than entering only historical opening balances.

PilotAudit provides Paper-to-Digital Pilot Logbook Conversion for pilots internationally. Original records should be retained, and competent-authority requirements should be considered where the converted record will be used for a regulatory or licensing purpose.

Final Thoughts

For a professional pilot, the logbook is the underlying record behind years of training, checking and operational experience.

It does not need to be artificially perfect.

It does need to be reliable, traceable and understood by the pilot presenting it.

Before an airline assessment, make sure you know where your totals came from. Understand what sits inside the PIC column. Be able to distinguish PICUS and SPIC from other command experience. Keep FSTD records distinct. Reconcile paper, electronic and operator records, and make sure the figures entered on an airline application follow the operator's definitions.

Most importantly, investigate discrepancies rather than hiding them.

Where the record has become too extensive or complex to review confidently on your own, an independent audit can provide another layer of assurance.

PilotAudit helps pilots across Europe and internationally audit their pilot logbooks and convert historic paper logbooks to digital records before airline assessments, skill tests, licence and rating applications, operator changes and other important career events.

Your logbook should not simply record your experience.

It should be able to support it