I’ve added additional info below. We really do stand by our guaranteed CFI job claim.
The 100 students per month is misleading if you extrapolate it to prior periods. Average monthly enrollment in 2015 was about 45 students per month and in 2016 was about 65 students per month. An accurate comparison would be to look at those 404 relative to about 600 starts. 2/3 of our students start from zero time, and the other 1/3 start with a Private Pilot. Factoring-in rough washout rates of 20% and 10% respectively, that 600 results in 450 (vs 404), which is petty close considering the estimates. So 404 out of roughly 600 vs. 404 out of roughly 1200. Fortunately we’ve been ahead of this increasing our fleet to 299 aircraft (#300 and 301 come next month!)
While 2 checkride failures can be a disqualifier we are very realistic in how we apply that rule. For example, we often make an exception to not count the CFI Initial toward those 2 because the CFI Initial has very low first time pass rate, pretty much mandated by the FAA. It’s a tough check ride and they are very tough on their DPEs who can give it.
I hope this has alleviated your concern. Thanks for choosing ATP. Denver is a great location.