Meeting the pilot of your flight is usually something that happens very rarely. You may see them boarding the plane and informing passengers of the flight progress from time to time, but the minute you step outside the plane, chances are you would have forgotten them.
Enter the age of Instagram, a time when pilots are using their good looks and luxury lifestyles to their advantage.
Pilots are up there with celebrities, fitness models and foodies on the Instagram hierarchy.
One of them is Raymon Cohen from Amsterdam.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Raymon | Private jet pilot(@pilotraymon) on May 10, 2019 at 3:49am PDT
With over 68K followers, Cohen says that the best engagement he receives is on pictures of himself in his pilot uniform and ones of him in front of the aircraft.
“I started with Instagram when my brother encouraged me to use the app. He said it was Facebook for pictures. It did not strike me as being a place where I could showcase my aviation life, so I posted images of nature. One day, I decided to post a picture of myself in my pilot's uniform.
“The picture got 100 likes, which surprised me as the usual images I posted received half of that. I slowly started to show my followers more about my life, and it began to gain traction,” he says.
Posts of him these days usually garner a few thousand likes.
Other Instagram pilots like Patrick Biedenkapp receives anything from 20k to 50k likes on his posts.
The 31-year-old German pilot, who flies to remote destinations around the world, has over 676k followers on Instagram. Biedenkapp, who flies for a major German airline is known as Pilot Patrick.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Patrick Biedenkapp | Captain(@pilotpatrick) on Jun 12, 2019 at 7:07am PDT
When he has spare time, he uses it to generate content for social media. He told IOL Travel last year: “ If I am not flying, I try to explore as much as I can. I use my layover time to discover new places and people. It is during this time I try to get as much content as I can for my followers.
“My followers love to discover new places and to hear about my travels.”
Biedenkapp usually posts shirtless pictures, some of him in the cockpit and of him exploring different destinations.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Patrick Biedenkapp | Captain(@pilotpatrick) on Aug 8, 2019 at 6:34am PDT
Maria Fagerström, a 27 years old pilot from Sweden, has 472k followers on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Maria Fagerström | 737 Pilot(@mariathepilot) on Dec 11, 2018 at 10:21am PST
Her bio states: "Female pilot in a male-dominated industry giving you insight into the aviation world with a purpose to inspire and empower others." Her page is a mix of aviation, modelling and travelling.
In one of her recent Instagram posts, she revealed her flying schedule.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Maria Fagerström | 737 Pilot(@mariathepilot) on May 22, 2019 at 6:02am PDT
"Pilots in my company work on a fixed schedule with 5 days of work, and then 4 days off. And of those five working days, some can be “standby days”, which means I can get called into work at any time. It’s mandatory to stay within one hour of the airport on those days. So when I’m out and about (most probably on the beach 😎) I bring my uniform and flight bag with me - just in case I’d get called in for duty 🛫 #ReadyForDuty 😉." (sic).
Eva Claire Marseille, a Hong Kong-based Boeing 747 pilot with 141k followers, also posts images of her exploring, but she uses her page to create awareness around her job.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Eva Claire Marseille (@flywitheva) on Aug 21, 2019 at 12:28am PDT
Majority of her images is of her wearing her uniform as she shares tidbits about her career. In one post, she reveals: “Some months I really have a ‘suitcase life’ with lots of layovers. I got better at packing over time, for example, I now bring travel adapters with me for every country ;)” (sic).