I have looked into United Aviate program, ATP Flight School, and American Airlines Cadet Academy as the main ones. ATP offers multiple flight schools in Texas, like 3 near Dallas, AA has one in Fort Worth and Aviate offers one in Arizona. The ones closer to me are better for me for my day-to-day life rather than going all the way to Arizona. Also I would also like to know how having a full-time job would affect training opportunities as my job is 1 AM to 11:30 AM.
One thing to note is that all the mentors on this forum went to ATP, had a good experience with ATP, and will thus recommend ATP over all others. (They will probably tell you this)
Harley,
Ben is correct. Not only are all the mentors on this forum successful ATP grads, if you look up on the left side of this forum, you’ll clearly see the ATP website. This is in fact ATPs forum. Now that doesn’t mean we’re salesmen (we’re not). Nor do we get any pay or incentive should you sign up. We all simply were in the same position you were in, after doing our research we decided ATP was the way to go and have all gone on to successful careers at the airlines.
I also would like to point out that both United and AA are ATP partners, and long before they started their own schools, ATP was their school of choice. Since ATP has been training pilots for the airlines for over 35yrs vs the other schools being in business for under 2yrs, it’s safe to say they modeled their programs after ATPs.
I encourage you to do your research and see which school is best for you. I can tell you that ATPs program requires a full-time commitment and working is highly discouraged. Further the hours you state would not work at all. You would have no time to sleep or study.
Adam
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Harley,
Welcome into the forums, I want to echo what Adam said about doing your research because there is a TON of information on this forum from past and current students, and our mentors (who I must say are ATP Alumni). When I was looking for a school to get all my ratings and kickstart my career, I wouldn’t be honest if I said I was looking at Universities and/or smaller “Academies” during my college days. In mid-2019 I came across this forum while working full-time at a financial institution, started doing my personal research, seeking others’ response to questions that I already had…took an admissions flight in November 2019 and realized it was now or never.
The fact that ATP has been in business well over 35 years and still growing in locations is something strong, no matter what location you do your training, no matter what plane you do it in, it is the same training that your fellow student friend is also getting. That is what is great about ATP, it’s standardized so that no matter where you go, you receive the same training program throughout the nation.
The question I think hasn’t been answered is have you done an introductory flight to see if aviation is fit for you? There’s a slight difference than sitting in the back of an Airbus or Boeing going on vacation to actually having the flight controls and manipulating the plane firsthand.
Brady
Harley,
There can be perks to getting into a Majors pipeline program earlier. I believe in United’s program, the earlier you get into their “ecosystem”, the sooner you’ll get hired there (If you and I did everything at the exact same pace, but you started training in the Aviate program while I got into the Aviate program once joining their Regional partners; you’d be senior to me in their recruiting pipeline). Chris might correct me if Im wrong here.
A few months ago I jump seated with a United Aviate mentor, his daughter was just starting at ATP in Chicago because the United Academy was still so new.
Do your research and figure out what will likely work best for you.
Chris F
Chris,
I am not entirely sure that is correct. Aviate is more based on meeting certain experience thresholds than when one becomes part of the program. The quicker somebody gets to 1,500 hours, the quicker they can get hired by a regional and meet the criteria for Aviate.
Chris
Thanks for the clarification. I looked online briefly and didn’t see anything to support that either, so I probably mis-heard what the Capt said.
Chris F