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Aviation glossary

Flight hours

Also: FH, flying hours, flight time

Manufacturing and maintenance

The time an aircraft, engine or pilot accumulates in flight; one of the basic measures for scheduling maintenance and for recording experience.

What it is

In maintenance, hours are usually counted from the moment the wheels leave the runway until they touch down again. For crews, ICAO defines flight time more broadly, from the moment the aircraft first moves to take off until it comes to rest at the end of the flight, which is the same as block time.

Many maintenance tasks, checks and inspections fall due after a set number of hours, alongside flight cycles and calendar limits. A long-haul aircraft can fly more than 4,000 hours a year, and some veteran wide-bodies have passed 100,000 hours over their careers.

For pilots, hours are the currency of experience: ICAO Annex 1 requires 1,500 hours of flight time for an airline transport pilot licence.

Related terms

Flight cyclesA unit of aircraft use equal to one take-off and one landing; the main measure of fatigue in the fuselage and in many engine parts. Block timeThe total time of a flight, measured from when the aircraft leaves the departure gate until it stops at the arrival gate, including taxiing and any holding. A, B, C and D checksPackages of scheduled maintenance, rising in depth from A to D, that an aircraft undergoes at set intervals of flight hours, cycles or calendar time. Service lifeThe period of use, measured in cycles, flight hours and years, over which the manufacturer has shown that an aircraft's structure withstands fatigue. Pilot in commandThe pilot designated as ultimately responsible for the operation and safety of a flight; at an airline this is the captain, who normally sits in the left-hand seat.
Whole glossary

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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Flight hours. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours

MLA

“Flight hours.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “Flight hours.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) Flight hours. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_flight_hours,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{Flight hours}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-hours |title=Flight hours |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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