An ATPL question bank is not a separate library from a CPL one. It is the same subjects at a higher standard, plus the aircraft you fly. Here is what the DGCA papers actually are, and what we hold today.
Searching for an “ATPL question bank” usually means one of two things. Either you have a CPL, you are building hours, and the ATPL papers are the next written hurdle. Or you are earlier than that and you have heard ATPL described as a separate, harder syllabus you will have to learn twice. This page settles both: what the ATPL written requirement actually is, where DGCA publishes it, and how to practise for it with material that exists today.
DGCA does not publish a question bank. There is no official set of ATPL questions to download, and the requirement that governs the examinations goes further than that: candidates are forbidden from carrying out or copying question papers, and it says strict action follows. So any site advertising an “official DGCA ATPL question bank” is advertising something that does not exist. What a good bank actually is, ours included, is questions written to the published syllabus and to the level real papers examine at, with the working shown.
The Airline Transport Pilot Licence is what lets you command a multi-crew aeroplane in commercial air transport. A CPL lets you be paid to fly; an ATPL is what the left seat eventually requires. The conditions are in the Aircraft Rules 1937, Schedule II, Section M: a minimum age of 21, 10+2 with physics and mathematics, 1,500 hours of aeroplane flight time, a current CPL, a current instrument rating, a current radio telephony licence, and a medical assessment under Rule 39B.
That changes what a question bank is for. Nobody sits an ATPL paper as their first exam. You arrive at it having cleared the CPL papers and having flown for years since, so your problem is not learning a subject from nothing. It is rebuilding a method you last used before you had a licence, to a higher standard than you used it then.
This is the thing the market is least clear about, and it is good news. The ATPL written examination is not a different set of subjects from the CPL one. DGCA publishes the syllabus itself, as CAR Section 7, Series B, Part VI, and the heads in it are the names you already know: Air Navigation, Aviation Meteorology, Radio Aids and Instruments, Air Regulation, Aircraft and Engines, technical specific, technical performance, and radio telephony with signals. The eligibility requirement that lists the papers, CAR Section 7, Series B, Part I at paragraph 5.1(g), names the same set, and adds that the performance paper applies to aircraft above 5,700 kg and that an ATPL is not issued on a single-engine aircraft.
There is one exemption worth knowing before you plan anything, and it is in Schedule II, Section M: a candidate holding a current Commercial Pilot Licence is not required to pass the examination in Air Regulations. Which papers that leaves you personally is a reading of those two documents together rather than a sentence DGCA prints anywhere, so treat any list you find online, including the ones on coaching sites, as somebody else’s reading. Confirm your own on pariksha.dgca.gov.in when you go to book, and read the CAR for the conditions that apply to your licence.
Two format details that catch people out. The ATPL theory papers are multiple choice except Performance, which is subjective, so it is the one paper you cannot drill with options. And Air Navigation and Radio Aids and Instruments each carry an oral on top of the written paper: 70 per cent in the theory paper makes you eligible for the oral, the oral is also marked at 70 per cent, and failing it three times sends you back to the theory paper no matter how much of your five-year window is left.
Once you know which papers you are sitting, none of the process is new. Applications for the Computer Number, the general papers, the technical papers and the orals all go through Pariksha, for PPL, CPL and ATPL alike:
| What | How it works |
|---|---|
| Where you book | The Pariksha portal, on the Computer Number you already hold |
| Pass mark | 70 per cent, each paper cleared on its own |
| Validity of a pass | Five years, for CPL and ATPL alike |
| Fee per paper | ₹2,500 in a regular sitting, ₹5,000 on demand |
| Fee per oral | ₹500, charged only on a second or third attempt |
| Per session | One application, and only one specific-aircraft technical paper |
The rhythm is the same too. DGCA publishes a programme of examinations for the year with a handful of regular sittings and a longer list of on-demand ones, the dates are marked tentative, and the registration window for each opens for only a few days and closes well before the paper. Our Pariksha exam guide covers the whole process, and the exam calendar page explains how to watch for a window without relying on a date somebody copied off an old notice.
One small thing worth packing correctly. The requirement sets out what you may carry into each paper, and it differs by subject: a navigation computer and a scientific calculator without multiple memories for Air Navigation, a scientific calculator alone for Radio Aids and Instruments, and nothing at all for Meteorology.
Plainly: we do not have one yet. There is an ATPL subject in our catalogue and it is empty. No books, no chapters, no questions. It is being built, and until it holds real questions with real worked solutions we would rather tell you that than put a shelf on the site with nothing on it, which is what most of the results for this search are.
What does exist, and what is genuinely useful if ATPL papers are what you are working towards, is two things. The first is the Airbus A320 bank, which is the type-specific material that becomes relevant exactly when an airline career does, and which nothing in a CPL syllabus prepares you for. The second is the CPL subject banks, which are the same subject families the ATPL papers examine: Air Navigation, Aviation Meteorology, Air Regulations, Technical General, Technical Specific and Radio Telephony. You can browse all of them from the question bank page, and every chapter opens five questions to anybody with no account through the free question bank.
Three things separate practising for an ATPL paper from practising for a CPL one, and none of them need a differently-labelled bank.
Work from the method, not the answer. The failure mode for somebody returning to theory after years of line flying is recognising a question shape and reaching for a remembered answer. That works until the numbers move. Every solution in our bank shows the working rather than the result, and in Air Navigation the harder ones animate, so what you rebuild is the procedure and not a memory of one exam.
Use real papers as a standard, not as a shortcut. Past papers tell you the level the examiner is actually pitching at, which is the thing a returning candidate most often misjudges. Read them for calibration, not as a list to memorise, and use the past papers we hold for that.
Test under a clock before you book. A fee is non-refundable and a missed sitting costs you a quarter, so the question you want answered before you pay is whether you are ready, not whether you are improving. A timed mock test answers that one, and it answers it in an evening.
There is no separate body of ATPL knowledge waiting to ambush you. There is the subject you already studied, examined at a higher standard, on the same portal, under the same five-year clock, plus whatever your aeroplane type demands, plus two orals. Nobody publishes an official bank for it, so practise the subject properly and the label on the bank stops mattering. When ours is full, we will say so on this page.
No. DGCA does not issue one, and the examination requirement forbids candidates from carrying out or copying question papers. Any site describing its material as the official DGCA question bank is describing something that does not exist. What exists is questions written to the published syllabus.
In CAR Section 7, Series B, Part VI, the syllabus for the examination for issue of an Airline Transport Pilot's Licence on aeroplanes, published on dgca.gov.in. The eligibility side, including the list of papers, is CAR Section 7, Series B, Part I. Read those rather than a coaching centre's summary.
Not if you hold a current Commercial Pilot Licence. Schedule II, Section M of the Aircraft Rules 1937 says a current CPL holder is not required to pass the ATPL examination in Air Regulations. Which papers that leaves you is worth confirming on Pariksha when you book.
Not yet. The ATPL subject exists in our catalogue with nothing in it, and we would rather say so than list an empty shelf. What we do hold, and what is genuinely useful at ATPL level, is the Airbus A320 bank and the CPL subject banks, all with worked solutions.
DGCA publishes no cap on attempts at a theory paper. The constraint is the five-year validity of a pass. The orals are different: after passing the theory paper you get three attempts at the oral within two years, and failing all three sends you back to the theory paper.