What are the requirements to fly for Lion Air?

captain 3,000 hours minimum; ICAO/EASA ATPL with current type rating, ICAO English Level 4+, Class 1 medical (expat captain advert).

Pay & conditions · Asia-Pacific

Lion Air: pilot jobs, pay and conditions

Q: How much does a first officer at Lion Air earn?

IDR 35,000,000–55,000,000 a month, gross (Not from an official source: figures collected from pilot forums, salary sites and other public sources. Indicative only).

Q: How much does a captain at Lion Air earn?

IDR 65,000,000–95,000,000 a month, gross (Not from an official source: figures collected from pilot forums, salary sites and other public sources. Indicative only).

Indonesia · Low-cost · JT / LNI

Hiring status unknown

Part of the Lion Air Group group: also Batik Air Malaysia

Still flying in 2026 (new Kuala Lumpur routes from mid-2026). Expat captains have historically come through agency packages (Jakarta, Surabaya, Bali bases), but no live advert could be confirmed on an agency's own site on 2026-11-01 (Rishworth and Brookfield lists showed no Lion Air roles). PilotJobsNetwork's wiki said in Feb 2025 that Lion Air was not hiring foreign or local pilots. The official careers page could not be loaded.

Pay

Unofficial figures. Not from an agreement or the airline: collected from pilot forums, salary sites and other public sources. Treat them as indicative.

Local contract

Cadet / Second Officer

IDR 15,000,000–22,000,000 a month

about $10–15k a year

First officer

IDR 35,000,000–55,000,000 a month

about $23–36k a year

Captain

IDR 65,000,000–95,000,000 a month

about $43–63k a year

Local IDR figures come from an Industry.co.id article (8 Sep 2026) that gives estimated monthly base pay before allowances for Lion Air: cadet/second officer Rp15-22 million, first officer Rp35-55 million (another passage in the same article says Rp30-55 million), captain Rp65-95 million, senior captain Rp95-130 million. The article says these are estimates, not company data, so treat them with caution. It also gives flight-hour pay (uang terbang) of Rp500,000 to Rp2 million per block hour across Indonesian airlines in general. Older data on PilotJobsNetwork (2013) listed an FO base of Rp21 million plus Rp4 million housing and stepped hourly pay. Expat captains are paid in USD on agency terms; see expat.

Expat contract

First officer

Not published

Captain

USD 11,000 a month

B737NG line captain advert placed for Lion Air (AviaCV listing, undated, no closing date): USD 11,000 monthly fee plus USD 1,000 travel, USD 750 housing (after 3 weeks in company housing) and USD 350 ground transport, about USD 13,100 a month in total. Overtime is paid at 1/90 of the fee per hour above 90 block hours, and there is a USD 10,000 completion bonus after 60 months as captain. The contract runs 5 years (2+2+1), with a 16/3 roster at first and 10/3 after that. Bases are Jakarta, Surabaya or Denpasar. A matching Lion Air Group A320 captain advert has the same package. A Rishworth B737NG command-upgrade contract posted on PPRuNe (undated) paid USD 3,100 a month during training, then USD 6,000 and later USD 6,500 a month net of Indonesian tax, on 10/2 rosters, with a USD 30,000 bond. These are older agency terms and may no longer apply.

Agreement news

Improved Terms B737NG Line Captain for Lion Air Indonesia (advert) ↗
AviaCV (job board copy of agency advert) · summary
Dalih Lion Air Kontrak Pilot hingga 20 Tahun ↗
kumparan · summary · 2019

Open vacancies (0)

No open pilot vacancies listed right now.

Conditions

Allowances: Local pilots: base salary plus flight-hour pay, which goes up in steps with monthly hours (Industry.co.id 2026; PilotJobsNetwork 2013). Expat captains: travel, housing and transport allowances on top of the monthly fee, plus overtime above 90 block hours.
Roster: Expat agency contracts: 16 weeks on / 3 off at first, then 10 on / 3 off (earlier contracts 10/2). Local roster patterns were not found in current sources.
Bases: CGK, SUB, DPS
Fleet: B737-800, B737-900ER, B737 MAX 8, A330-300
Benefits: Expat package: positioning flights, personal accident and loss-of-licence insurance, medical insurance, completion bonus.
Careers site: lionair.co.id ↗

Requirements

Captain: 3,000 hours minimum
Type rating: Expat captains need a current B737NG type rating (or A320 for the group advert). Local cadets are trained by the group.
Bond: Lion Air Group is known for very long training bonds on locally trained pilots. In Nov 2019 kumparan saw a contract clause that tied a pilot to 18 years of service after training, plus repayment of training costs and USD 758,689.57 in compensation if the bond was broken. Wings Air (same group) acknowledged bonds of up to 20 years. Penalties of Rp500 million to several billion rupiah have been described, and the group has sued pilots who left early (Rp117 billion in 2009, Rp65 billion in 2012). An older agency contract for expat FOs (Rishworth, via PPRuNe) required a USD 30,000 bond.
Licence: ICAO/EASA ATPL with current type rating, ICAO English Level 4+, Class 1 medical (expat captain advert).
Other: Expat captain advert: 3,000 TT, 1,000 jet, 500 jet PIC including 250 on B737NG, flown in the last 6 months, clean accident/incident and criminal record.

Sources

Not from an official source: figures collected from pilot forums, salary sites and other public sources. Indicative only · figures from 2026-09 · checked 1 Nov 2026

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