Offer letter
The airline's formal job offer after selection — conditional on medical, background and visa — with a joining date weeks or months away.
Definition
An offer letter is the written offer of employment that follows a successful assessment, setting out the position, grade, base, salary and allowances, contract type, probation period and joining date. It is almost always conditional: you must clear the medical, background checks, document verification and, where the airline sponsors you, the visa before the joining date is confirmed. At Gulf carriers the phone call that precedes the letter is known as the golden call.
What it means for you
Read the letter as a contract preview and check it against what the airline's careers page and this site say about basic pay, flying pay, accommodation and probation, because a discrepancy is easiest to raise before you resign from your current job. Do not hand in notice until the conditions are cleared and the joining date is in writing. Joining dates slip, so keep an income until you are on the training roster.
In practice
At Emirates the golden call is followed by medical, background checks and visa processing, and joining dates land 4-12 weeks later; at IndiGo the offer leads to medicals and document verification before several weeks at the airline's training academy.
Go deeper
Related terms
4 terms- Final interviewRecruitmentThe last stage of selection: a one-to-one or panel interview built on behavioural questions, answered with concrete examples.
- Aviation medicalRecruitmentThe medical examination a joiner must pass before flying: regulator-defined in Europe, airline-run in the Gulf and the US.
- Crew contractRecruitmentThe agreement fixing your pay structure, base, contract length, training bond and notice — read it before you resign from anything.
- ProbationRecruitmentThe initial months of employment during which the airline can end your contract at short notice — and at some carriers pays you less.