Hello,
I was reading through some of the airline placements from ATP over the past 12 months and noticed that several individuals were placed in well over 2 years. I saw a lot of students who went to the airlines after time periods such as 39 months, 48 months, 63 months, etc from when they started with ATP. I know ATP notes that you can make it to the airlines in around 2 years from zero time but is it more common for it to take people significantly longer than that?
Thank you!
Jay
Jay,
It usually takes 24 months for a pilot that is serious and instructs at ATP. Many of those students probably took time off or instructed some place where flight time is harder to come by.
Chris
Jay,
I did the math and came up with this. The 24 month statement is based on an average of 85 hours per month as a CFI. If a CFI works five days a week and flies an average of 4-4.5 hours per day, they will reach 1500 total time in 24 months. Considering that most CFIs elect to work weekends, this is very achievable at ATP.
As Chris said, the airline placements posted on ATP’s website could have been any graduate of ATP’s program, including the ones that decided to instruct elsewhere, or delayed their airline applications, or decided to do other kinds like flying like part 135, etc.
Tory
Also, make sure to look at the expanded view of the placement. Sometimes there are other airlines they have worked for prior to the placement being advertised. But yeah, anyone who takes longer than 3 years most likely left to fly somewhere other than ATP. I don’t know anyone who stayed with ATP and took longer than 3 years from starting the full-time program personally.