'I hate being idle': Why many airline pilots say they're turning to day-trading as a side hustle in their off time

• More pilots have become day traders in their spare time in recent years.
• The trend is fueled by rising pilots' salaries, heightened free time, and a desire for financial freedom.
• More pilots entered the market in 2020, when many saw how fragile the travel industry can be.

Jonathan Prieur's career in markets began just as his flying career seemed to abruptly end. The 49-year-old pilot had a contract to switch to a new airline in 2020, which was canceled when the pandemic brought air travel to a halt. Stressed out, he turned to something he had put on the back burner for years, but had always hoped would boost his income: trading.

For Prieur, who now flies for Qatar Airways and has a stable income, the crisis has blown over — but he's still day trading. In between trips and after long flying shifts, he takes off his pilot hat and jumps headfirst into markets, executing short-term forex trades with profits that range from the low single digits to more than 10% on a month, according to his own account and recent brokerage statements he showed Business Insider.

The side gig won't turn him into a millionaire, but it's the principle of trading on the side that matters, Prieur said, adding that he hopes to one day achieve financial freedom for his own peace of mind.

"Yes, the trading is stressful, yes the mortgage and whatnot. But I know that if at least I'm working on my trading, I am trying to find a solution," Prieur said. "It's not far away."

Pilots have long been avid investors, but those in the profession say that the yearning for financial freedom has sharpened in recent years, ever since the pandemic upended air travel and pushed many to search for alternative sources of income.

That, paired with six-figure salaries and a lot of free time — two perks that have always come attached to the pilot role — was the perfect recipe for the surge of pilots who have turned to markets in recent years. Trading for them is either in pursuit of financial freedom, or simply to fill long stretches of downtime, according to pilots and others in the aviation business who spoke with Business Insider.

The percentage of pilots who have developed a side hustle unrelated to aviation rose four percentage points over the last two decades, according to data from the workforce intelligence firm Revelio Labs.

The proportion of pilots with a finance-related side-hustle, while small, has nearly doubled over that timeframe. Sharp increases were seen in the years after the Great Financial Crisis and in 2020, two periods when pilots faced elevated unemployment.

Chatter about markets has always made its way into the cockpit, but pilots have become more active investors in recent years alongside the broader retail-trading boom, according to Alex Tapia, a wealth planner who works with aviation professionals. Over the last five years, he estimates his firm, Pilot Money, has seen a 50% increase in clients who are short-term investors and are active in markets.

'The best part time job in the world'

Pilots tend to be private, Prieur said. He himself keeps his own trading under wraps, out of fear of drawing jealousy or "bad energy." But, should a fellow pilot talk markets, it's often met with a flood of enthusiasm.

A few things explain why it's become a popular pursuit.

For one, many pilots are sitting on a healthy nest egg and have plenty of cash to spare for cultivating a hobby in markets, Tapia said. The average annual salary of pilots and co-pilots soared 98% from 1995 to 2020, according to the most recent available data from the MIT Airline Data Project.

Excess time is another factor. The FAA prevents pilots from flying more than 100 hours a month, the equivalent of around 12 business days.

"I always call it the best part-time job in the world," Tapia said.

Many pilots' sense of independence tends to lead them to markets. They're often skeptical of management and are used to preparing for the worst-case scenarios, according to Casey Smith, the president of Wiser Wealth Management, another wealth manager that works heavily with pilots.

Greg Dlugi, a pilot for TUI Airways who trades on the side, said he noticed investing culture got a big push in the industry in 2020, when the pandemic showed many pilots just how fragile and economically sensitive the travel industry can be.

Dlugi, who also regularly takes pilots under his wing to teach them how to trade, says he believes the lifestyle is ideal for a trader, since being away from friends and family for extended periods of time is all part of the package. Though he prefers to trade at home, Dlugi says he regularly scans the markets in between flights and is ready to pounce on a good trade, should he see one in the hotel room or in long layovers.

Across all his accounts, he aims for a 5% average return a month, he told Business Insider.

"The idea is I can sit on a beach in Barbados and flick open my laptop and trade the Dow Jones, for example. I don't have to sit down in a office to do that, and I don't have to have a warehouse with stuff I'm selling on Amazon," he said of the freedom.

Prieur, who studied forex under Dlugi's mentorship, has a similar schedule. Though being in the right time zone to capture the New York or London sessions can be tricky, he says the trading in between trips generally doesn't interfere with flying, since he keeps his risk manageable enough that he doesn't have to worry about positions while in the air.

Prieur believes he's around five years away from becoming truly financially independent. Though he hopes to fly forever, the comfort of knowing he could support himself is a huge perk.

"I could say, 'Hey, if the flying were to stop tomorrow, I could self-sustain myself and my family,'" he said.

Nyasha Madziwa, a 23-year-old pilot who is now completing his training to become a flight instructor, has similar goals in mind. He began learning how to trade forex during the pandemic, partly because he aspires to be a private pilot — more exciting, but less financially lucrative compared to being a commercial pilot.

Madziwa said his days are tightly structured around flying and trading, jumping into the markets for several hours after driving home from the airport.

"I hate being idle," Madziwa said. "I'm going to focus on forex as a means of financial freedom, then I'm going to focus on flying as a dream," he added, though he noted he was still working towards being a profitable trader.

Pilots tend to be much better at flying than at trading, Tapia and Smith, who are both former pilots themselves, said.

"Here's the issue with airline pilots. You want your pilot to be very confident. And that confidence sometimes goes into other areas where they probably statistically don't understand," Wiser Wealth's Smith said.

Tapia said overconfidence can proliferate in the profession, something that can be a hindrance to seeing a return in the market.

"It tends to work against you when you do it with your own money."