Mark Vanhoenacker

Mark Vanhoenacker (born 1974) is a Belgian-American airline pilot and author.^[1] He is a Boeing 787 pilot with British Airways and is also frequent contributor for the New York Times, Slate and the Financial Times with a focus on aviation. His first book, Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot was published in 2015, followed by How to Land a Plane in 2017, and Imagine a City in 2022.^[2][3]

Mark Vanhoenacker
Born	1974 (age 50–51) Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Nationality	Belgian-American
Known for	Commercial pilot, author, and aviation columnist

Life

Vanhoenacker was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His father, a former priest who left his vocation, was born in Belgium.^[4] His mother was born to a Lithuanian family in the United States.^[5] He has an adopted brother.^[6]

Vanhoenacker studied at Amherst College, before undertaking an MPhil in history at the University of Cambridge. He started a PhD programme in East African history but decided after several months that he was more interested in pursuing a career in aviation.^[7] While saving money towards the expected cost of his flight training, he worked as a management consultant in Boston.^[4][8][9] He subsequently joined a British Airways (BA) training programme,^[8] and became a pilot of small Airbus aircraft in Europe than going on to become a Boeing 747 pilot. Following the retirement of the 747 fleet in 2020, Vanhoenacker now flies Boeing 787 aircraft.^[10] Vanhoenacker is gay.^[11]

Writing

Vanhoenacker is a contributor to newspapers including the New York Times and Financial Times, and news websites such as Slate, with a focus on commercial aviation.^[12][13] He has written the following books:

• Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (2015), Alfred A. Knopf (US) and Chatto & Windus/Vintage Books (UK), ISBN 9780385351829
• How to Land a Plane (2017), Quercus, ISBN 9781786487162
• Imagine a City: A Pilot Sees the World (2022), Chatto & Windus, ISBN 9781784743253