“Why do you want to become a pilot?”

It is one of the questions we ask in almost every MPL interview. At first, it may sound like a simple question. But after hearing many different answers over the years, I have realized that it is rarely simple. 

Some candidates talk about childhood dreams. Some remember the first time they stepped onto an aircraft. Some are attracted by the responsibility, the technical side of aviation, or the opportunity to build a career in the sky. Others arrive in the same interview room after completely different careers and life experiences. The question remains the same, but the answers never do, and perhaps that is exactly the point. 

Because behind every application, assessment result, simulator session, and interview, there is a human being. There is a story, motivation, a way of thinking, and a potential that cannot always be understood from a CV alone. 

This human factor has always been at the heart of our SunExpress MPL Pilot Training Program. 

When people think about pilots, technical knowledge and flying skills naturally come to mind first.

Of course, these are essential, but modern aviation requires much more. A pilot operates in an environment where decisions need to be made under changing conditions, information needs to be processed quickly, communication needs to remain clear, and teamwork can directly affect the safety and efficiency of an operation. 

This is why pilot development today is strongly connected to a broader set of competencies. The IATA pilot competency framework, for example, looks beyond technical aircraft handling and includes areas such as communication, leadership and teamwork, problem solving and decision making, situation awareness, workload management, application of procedures, and knowledge. 

These competencies are closely connected to something we often discuss internally: what makes the ideal SunExpress pilot? 

HRBP Crew Team: the people behind the journey, with many hands and hearts contributing along the way.

For us, identifying future pilots is therefore not simply about finding candidates who can pass an examination or perform well in one assessment. It is about looking at the whole person and asking a much more important question: 

Does this person have the potential to become a pilot and eventually the captain we want to see in a SunExpress cockpit? 

That changes the meaning of recruitment. We are not only selecting candidates for a training program. We are trying to identify potential that may develop over many years. 

The SunExpress MPL Pilot Training Program was launched in 2018 with a long-term perspective. The objective was not simply to provide candidates with a license. The journey was designed around preparing pilots specifically for an airline environment and developing the technical and non-technical competencies they would need throughout their careers. And that journey starts long before the first flight. 

Those who know our MPL Program know that being accepted is not easy. The selection process is comprehensive and highly competitive because the decision we make at the beginning of the journey carries a long-term responsibility. Over time, individual assessment steps and methods have evolved. We have listened to candidates, reviewed our processes, worked with different stakeholders, analyzed results, and continued to develop the candidate experience. 

While the program and our selection methods have evolved over the years, what we look for in our future pilots has remained quite consistent. A CV can tell us about someone’s education and experience, but it cannot tell us the whole story. This is why we try to get to know our candidates from different perspectives throughout the selection process: how they think, communicate, work with others, make decisions, and respond to different situations.

After all, we are selecting people at the very beginning of a long journey. What matters to us is not only what a candidate can demonstrate today, but also the potential they have to learn, develop and eventually take their place in the cockpit as a SunExpress Pilot.

A glimpse into one of our MPL interview days

This is also why human factors and pilot competencies matter so much during selection. Technical capability can never be separated completely from communication, teamwork, decision making, resilience, situation awareness, and the ability to learn. A future pilot needs to operate an aircraft, but they also need to operate as part of a crew. And one day, some of those candidates will be the people making decisions from the left-hand seat. 

Looking back at the MPL Program since its launch in 2018 gave me the opportunity to see the journey from a different perspective. In our daily work, we naturally focus on what is happening today: the candidates in the process, the next assessment, the next training group. But when I looked at the program as a whole, I could see much more clearly how it has evolved over the years, the different people who have become part of it, and where some of those first cadets are today. What started as a new pathway into the cockpit has gradually become a collection of very different career stories and I think that is one of the most interesting parts of the MPL journey.

Since 2024 alone, we have received more than 20,000 applications for our cadet pilot opportunities. Across the wider MPL journey, more than 250 cadets have become part of the program. But behind this number are individual journeys that cannot be measured by statistics alone. Since the beginning of the program, we have launched 14 MPL training groups across three different flight schools, bringing together people with very different backgrounds, experiences, and stories. 

Some joined us at the very beginning of their professional careers. Some came from completely different industries and decided to turn a long-held dream of flying into a new profession. Others were already part of SunExpress in different roles and saw the MPL Program as an internal mobility opportunity, a chance to build a completely new career within the company they already called home. 

Each of them entered the program with a different story, but with the same destination in mind: the cockpit. Today, they are at different stages of that journey. Some are still progressing through their training. Many are already flying our aircraft as First Officers. And some of the earliest MPL graduates have already taken the next major step in their careers and become Captains at SunExpress. 

Havvanur Şahin: Our First Female MPL Captain, taking one of the final steps from the right-hand seat to the left. 

For me, this is one of the most meaningful parts of looking back at the program’s evolution. Those 14 groups are not simply training batches or numbers on a presentation. They represent hundreds of individual decisions, ambitions, career changes, challenges, and achievements. 

For a program built around the idea of “training the captains of the future,” seeing that future already becoming reality is perhaps one of the strongest measures of its impact. 

A person who once sat across from us and answered, “Why do you want to become a pilot?” can, years later, be sitting in the left-hand seat of a SunExpress aircraft. That is when recruitment becomes much more than recruitment. 

And perhaps that is also what makes this question so meaningful. When we ask it, we are not only asking about a candidate’s motivation today. We may be hearing the beginning of a story that will continue for many years, from an interview room to a flight school, from the right-hand seat to the left. 

There are still many stories waiting to begin. Maybe one day, when we meet in an interview, I will be the one asking you: 

Why do you want to become a pilot? ✈️

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