In the United States, purchasing a car is considered a daily necessity; however, owning a private plane and obtaining a pilot’s license, although not of low threshold, is certainly not beyond reach. Looking globally, the United States is one of the few countries where “personal aviation” has become a common phenomenon: the number of aircraft and licensed pilots in the U.S. ranks first in the world.
According to statistics from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at the end of 2024, the United States had over 848,000 individuals holding valid civil aviation pilot licenses.
Among them, approximately 109,000 hold commercial pilot licenses, around 179,000 have Airline Transport Pilot Licenses (ATP), about 345,000 have student pilot licenses; there are over 172,000 holders of Private Pilot Licenses (PPL) for fixed-wing aircraft; and over 138,000 flight instructors.
Compared to the U.S. population of 340 million, with 172,000 PPL pilots, on average, there is one individual legally qualified to independently fly an aircraft out of every approximately 2,000 Americans.
Behind these numbers lies the fact that, in addition to commercial aviation, the United States also has hundreds of thousands of private aviators involved in education, training, business aviation, supporting the entire aviation industry, and fostering a strong talent pool and market vitality.
How to obtain a pilot’s license in the U.S.?
The requirements are not high in the U.S., but they are stringent. To legally pilot an aircraft in the U.S., one must meet the following basic conditions: be at least 17 years old; pass FAA medical examination and English comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing assessments; pass FAA written tests and simulator/actual flight training; have a recommendation and operational proficiency approval signed by a qualified flight instructor (or examiner).
One crucial point not to be overlooked is that the recommendation signature carries legal responsibility. Therefore, flight instructors and examiners do not easily sign off, highlighting the strict training culture and safety core of U.S. aviation.
How many private planes are in the United States?
By the end of 2023, the U.S. had approximately 214,000 General Aviation (GA) aircraft, encompassing all civilian aircraft excluding commercial and military aircraft, including fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and gliders. The states with the highest number of private pilots are California with around 20,011, Florida with 16,071, Texas with 15,202, followed by Washington with 6,163. New York ranked 11th with 4,836 individuals.
Various factors contribute to the disparities among states, including population size (California, Texas, and Florida are among the most populous states), affluence (all four states are regions with high densities of millionaires), climate conditions (high number of flyable days per year), airport and runway densities (numerous small airports and civilian runways), and aviation culture: the U.S. has many “aviation towns,” where residents have airstrips and runways in their backyard.
According to the data from the website Living With Your Plane (a directory and resource center for residential airparks), there are over 700 residential airparks throughout the U.S., where residents park their planes in personal hangars, taxi down the runway like driving a car, and take off right from home. These residential airparks are spread across the U.S., with Texas and Florida having the most, and many residents being middle-class individuals, including pilots, air traffic controllers, businessmen, lawyers, retirees, and aviation enthusiasts from various professions.
The general aviation ecosystem in the U.S. is highly mature, facilitating conditions where flying is akin to driving—people use private planes for travel, commuting to work, weekend flights, and interstate business trips.
In FY2024, approximately 14.5 million aircraft movements in the U.S. airspace were for Visual Flight Rules (VFR), nearly all from private and GA aviation activities; there were an additional 16.1 million movements for Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), primarily from airlines. In other words, close to half of the FAA’s air traffic volume actually comes from private and general aviation. In the same year, the FAA handled around 6.39 million non-scheduled flight movements, mainly involving private aircraft, business jets, government planes, and flight training.
Such a scale of private aviation operations is almost unparalleled in other countries around the world.