Vince,
The bonuses and tuition reimbursement are incentives provided by the airlines. If an airline offers a hiring bonus, every pilot will receive it regardless of where the pilot did their flight training.
Tuition reimbursement is also something that the airline has control over. ATP is one of many schools that has agreements with airlines that offer tuition reimbursement. If an airline decides to stop offering tuition reimbursement, then every school with an agreement with that airline will be affected. So, again, choosing a school has nothing to do with either.
As for your understanding of how part 61 and 141 works, it comes down to the syllabus. A part 61 school uses the FARs written by the FAA. Part 61 schools can tailor the training for each student and sometimes go out of order. Part 141 schools use their own syllabus. The syllabus has to be approved by the FAA. This approach gets scrutinized because the part 141 syllabus is inflexible. It may look cheaper on paper. It may even look faster, but thatâs not always the case. Part 141 schools rely on stage checks to progress a student to the next phase of training. Instructor availability, or aircraft availability can slow the process or even bring it to a complete halt until an aircraft is brought back from a maintenance hangar. This doesnât always happen, but it can, and it does often enough that a lot of pilots complain about how much their 141 school cost or how long it took that they end up switching to a part 61 school like ATP to finish their training.
As for the rates that youâre seeing online. I have a feeling that youâre not comparing apples to apples. You need to look deeper. Donât just look at the total price. Look at the ratings that the price is based on. Also look at the number of hours for each rating and the total number of hours that a pilot is estimated to have by the end of the program.
A lot of times a school will advertise the cost of their program based on FAA minimums, not national average minimums. Plus, if a school is cheaper than ATP, itâs probably because of two reasons, their equipment is older, and they donât offer the same ratings as ATP. For example, a lot of schools donât offer MEI or CFII. Those are typically offered as an additional course. A lot of schools donât offer 100 hours of multi-engine time either. That would explain the price difference.
Lastly, when it comes to choosing a school, you canât just look at it from a financial perspective. Youâre focusing on total cost, and maximum financial ROI. Thereâs a lot more that goes into creating a quality school than that. I remember when I was doing my research on flight schools. ATP was the best bang for my buck. They pioneered the airline oriented fast track program. I chose them because they had the reputation to back themselves up.
The mixed bag stories that youâve heard of are most likely written by the students that werenât successful. 9.999 times out of 10, those stories were written by students that didnât take responsibility for their actions or take initiative to ensure their success in the program. Weâve heard every excuse. Thereâs always more to the story that justifies why a student wasnât successful and the common denominator always comes down to integrity and initiative.
ATP is not for everyone. But the program will deliver what it promises if you sign up with realistic expectations. Itâs not a drive through. Your hand will not be held. It requires a lot of self discipline. There will be one-on-one ground, but itâs primarily self-study. The unsuccessful students almost always miss that crucial point. But if you trust the program, and you take it upon yourself to ensure that youâre maximizing your education, the cost of the program will be invaluable. As a graduate of the program in 2015, I was hired by Horizon in 2017. I upgraded in 2019. I would not have been able to have accomplish that had I gone somewhere else. New hire bonus and tuition reimbursement aside, I would not have done anything different.
Tory
