What to Expect in the Avelo Interview
The Avelo Airlines pilot interview is a conversational but structured evaluation built around four areas: behavioral questions in the TMAAT format, technical knowledge of the Boeing 737NG and Part 121 fundamentals, CRM scenarios drawn from Avelo's real operating environment, and company knowledge. Of those four, company knowledge and mission fit carry more weight at Avelo than at most carriers, because the airline is young and deliberately building its pilot culture one hire at a time.
Based on the Avelo questions in the VTH question bank, here is how the question load breaks down:
Behavioral (TMAAT)
Reliability, overcoming professional challenges, working in resource-limited environments, safety culture, and how you handle the lifestyle of repetitive short-haul flying.
Technical
737NG systems in depth, plus standard Part 121 knowledge: stabilized approach criteria, V1, fuel requirements, departure alternates, deicing fluids, windshear, and TCAS.
CRM Scenarios
Situations pulled straight from Avelo's network: short-runway airports with terrain, winter operations at HVN, delays at small stations with limited ground support.
Company Knowledge
Avelo's mission, route strategy, profitability model, on-time performance reputation, and the background of CEO Andrew Levy. Expect direct questions on all of these.
The tone is generally friendly. Do not mistake friendly for casual. Interviewers are checking whether you understand exactly what kind of airline you are joining, and vague answers about "growth opportunity" get filtered out fast.
How Avelo's Operation Shapes the Questions
Avelo is a single-fleet Boeing 737NG operator flying point-to-point routes from secondary airports, and nearly every distinctive question in its interview traces back to one of those three facts. If you understand the operating model, you can predict most of the interview.
Single fleet: the 737NG
Avelo flies the 737-700 and 737-800 with the CFM56-7B engine. One fleet type means training, maintenance, and scheduling all get simpler and cheaper, and it also means the technical portion of your interview goes deep on one airplane. From the question bank, recurring 737 topics include:
- Runaway stabilizer trim: recognition and response
- The 737 flight control system, bleed air system, and speed brake/spoiler system
- Gear extension, normal versus alternate
- GPWS/EGPWS modes and how you respond to alerts
- Approach and landing speeds, and the practical differences between the -700 and -800
One behavioral question worth preparing for specifically: "How do you feel about flying older 737NG aircraft?" There is a right way to answer this. The NG is a proven, well-understood airframe, and flying older jets rewards systems discipline and thorough preflight habits. If any part of you would rather be on a MAX or an A321neo, keep it out of the room.
Secondary airports: short runways, terrain, and weather
Avelo built its West Coast operation around Hollywood Burbank (BUR), deliberately bypassing LAX congestion, and its East Coast operation around New Haven (HVN). Both airports show up in interview scenarios because both demand real airmanship. Expect questions like:
- Explain the approach challenges at BUR: short runway, surrounding terrain
- Walk through an engine failure on takeoff at a short-runway airport
- Describe winter operations considerations at HVN
These are not trivia. They test whether you think in terms of performance planning, escape routes, and contamination before you ever push the thrust levers. Review takeoff performance concepts, balanced field logic, and cold-weather operations before interview day.
Small stations: limited resources, high reliability expectations
Avelo stakes its reputation on on-time performance, and it achieves that partly by avoiding congested hubs. But small stations come with thin ground support, and the interview probes how you operate when the cavalry is not coming. Question bank themes include handling a developing delay at a small station with limited ground support, managing weather building at several Avelo destinations at once, and a TMAAT on working in a resource-limited environment. Your answers should show ownership: you communicate early, you work the problem with the people you have, and you protect the schedule without ever trading safety for it.
The mission questions
Avelo launched in April 2021 with a stated mission of making travel simpler, safer, and more affordable, focused on connecting communities that bigger carriers leave underserved. Interviewers ask about this directly, and they ask why the model works: low landing fees and gate costs at secondary airports, minimal congestion, point-to-point routes that avoid hub cascade delays, and one fleet type. If you cannot explain the business in two minutes, you are not ready for this interview.
Real Avelo Airlines Interview Questions
These six questions come from the VTH question bank for Avelo, each paired with the key answer our coaches use for scoring. Use them as calibration, not as scripts. Your delivery has to be your own.
Key answer: Avelo's mission resonates: connecting underserved communities with affordable travel. That is a different fight than ULCCs slugging it out over dense, already-saturated city pairs. Joining now means earning seniority early and helping shape the culture rather than inheriting one.
Key answer: Avelo launched in April 2021 and is in a genuine growth phase. The seniority list, the routes, and the culture are being built right now. That means ground-up culture shaping, faster upgrade timelines, and a real voice in the company.
Key answer: Avelo's mission of making travel simpler, safer, and more affordable resonates because it is about opening air travel to communities that are underserved. Connect that to something real in your own flying or your own hometown.
Key answer: BUR is the West Coast anchor, chosen to bypass LAX congestion. From there Avelo serves secondary California markets with point-to-point leisure routes into the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. East Coast expansion at HVN and RDU shows the model scales beyond one region.
Key answer: Secondary airports keep costs down: low landing fees, cheap gates, minimal congestion compared with major hubs. Point-to-point flying eliminates hub cascade delays. A single fleet type streamlines maintenance, training, and scheduling.
Key answer: Since launching in 2021, the secondary-airport strategy has delivered lower gate costs, less congestion, and strong community partnerships. Adding HVN brought geographic diversification. The niche Avelo occupies is real and still largely untapped.
The full Avelo set in the question bank runs much deeper, covering behavioral, technical, CRM, and company categories from beginner through advanced.
How to Prepare
Preparation for Avelo splits cleanly into three tracks: your stories, your company research, and your 737/121 technical review. Give yourself several weeks and work all three in parallel.
1. Build your STAR story library
Avelo's behavioral questions follow the standard TMAAT format, and STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is how you keep answers tight and complete. Build six to eight stories that cover reliability, overcoming a professional challenge, working with limited resources, safety culture, and crew conflict. Given Avelo's operation, at least one story should show you delivering a good outcome without much support around you. Our full walkthrough of the format is in the TMAAT Questions and the STAR Method guide.
2. Do the company research properly
The "Why Avelo?" question is not a warm-up here; it is a filter. Before interview day you should be able to speak fluently about:
- The mission: simpler, safer, more affordable travel for underserved communities
- The April 2021 launch and what joining a young airline means for you specifically
- The network: BUR as the West Coast anchor, HVN in the Northeast, expansion markets like RDU
- Why the model is profitable: secondary-airport costs, point-to-point routing, single fleet
- Avelo's on-time performance reputation and why reliability is central to the brand
- CEO Andrew Levy and his background in the airline industry. Candidates get asked about him by name.
3. Review the 737NG and Part 121 fundamentals
Work through 737NG systems at the level of a competent line pilot: flight controls, bleed air, electrics (including AC versus DC), gear, spoilers, EGPWS, and runaway trim response. Then close the gaps on 121 knowledge that shows up across the question bank: stabilized approach criteria, V1 and the factors that affect it, Part 121 fuel requirements, departure alternates, Exemption 3585, deicing and anti-icing fluid types, windshear recovery, TCAS resolution advisories, and RVSM.
Pro Tip: Practice out loud. Knowing your stories and reciting them under pressure are different skills, and the gap between them is where most candidates lose points. The VTH app includes the full Avelo question set with an AI Voice Coach that scores your spoken answers, so you can drill until the delivery is as solid as the content.