ATP claims there to be many pros to going. However, many of these are blatantly untrue. Here are some of their supposed claims. We will debunk each of these in turn.
| "Pros" | The Claim | The Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Fast Track Program | ATP Flight School offers an accelerated training program that allows students to earn their certificates and ratings quickly. | This is somewhat correct. While it is indeed fast, this is entirely relative. Relative to what? It's fast compared to a Part 141 program that requires a four year degree to go with it, sure. It's far from the fastest way to get your ratings, however. In fact, a regular mom-and-pop school in your local area should most of the time be able to beat out ATP in terms of speed, cost, and quality of training. |
| High-Quality Training | Known for its high standards of training and safety, with experienced instructors dedicated to providing top-notch instruction. | This is just entirely untrue. In fact, ATP students and graduates have a reputation in the industry for being some of the worst trained pilots there are. Many ATP graduates are ashamed to admit they trained at ATP because (for better or worse) many employers have a strong aversion to hiring graduates of the program. As a graduate of the program myself, I have personally experienced this, and to be honest, I cannot blame them: I was not made a very good pilot by ATP. I will say, however, that this is NOT the fault of the individual instructors. I have seen some good ones and bad ones, but the genuinely good ones are few and far between and are exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm. |
| Fleet of Modern Aircraft | "Maintains a fleet of modern aircraft equipped with advanced avionics for hands-on experience with the latest technology." | This is actually true! ATP has a fleet of (generally) wonderful Piper Archers. Most (not all) locations and pilots will exclusively fly these G1000 equipped PA-28 aircraft until they reach the multi-engine stage of their training, where they will fly some VERY old, VERY quirky, and VERY worn out PA-44 (Piper Seminoles). However, in my own experience, I have yet to have flown an Archer or Seminole I have felt unsafe in... however, the planes they use for spin training in CFI? Some of the most clapped out C172 aircraft I have ever seen. At least it is a short flight! Be sure to check before you train to determine which location you are going to, as not all are equipped with G1000 aircraft. Some are flying 6 pack Cessna 172s or G500 Archers instead. |
| Professional Maintence | The aircraft are professionally maintained at ATP's maintence centers. | This is also true, generally. While ATP does a pretty solid job of keeping the aircraft legal and safe, they cut corners on other things such as having seat-rails that don't properly extend to allow proper forward visibility and sight picture. I have flown in aircraft in sub-zero temperatures with heaters that were ineffecitve, if not broken, with leaks that directed freezing ram air into my thighs for hours. Expect many frustrations with struts that are out of tolerances, among other things. But don't worry, a DPE will not complain, as they have been "onboarded" and vetted by ATP to allow for overlooking elements of the ACS. In fact, a this is something a regional lead once told me directly. |
| Nationwide Locations | Multiple locations across the United States for convenient access to training facilities. | Not much to say regarding this, it is true. They start locations frequently using the huge profits they rake in from the students who just don't know any better than to go to ATP. What they won't tell you is that most of the FBOs ATP is located at actually hate them. Expect some veiled hostility from FBO owners, areas to be restricted to ATP students, and more. Many locations are crowded and cramped because FBOs refuse to allow ATP to rent more space, even! And don't even think about going "undercover", as ATP students have a strict dress code they must follow at all times. |
| Career Services | Provides career services to help graduates find employment opportunities in the aviation industry. | Anyone in the industry can tell you there are ZERO professional benefits to joining ATP. No department in ATP actually wants to assist you with anything. Rather, you are just a number to push along, regardless of whether or not you are ready. Surprise, your checkride is in 20 hours and you need to fly 3 states over to take it! Don't worry about whether or not the DPE actually knows you are coming, or will even be allowed to do the checkride with less than 20 hours notice! Why such short notice? Because the original student scheduled for that block was never endorsed in the first place. (Yes, this is from personal experience.) |
| Cons | The Reality |
|---|---|
| Limited Flexibility in Schedule | The program has a rigid schedule, limiting flexibility for students. You might see this as a good thing. It is not. You have all the cons of a Part 141 program, with none of the benefits. Expect to not know your schedule for the day until 11pm the night before. Don't forget that ATP is NOT a Part 141 and you will need at LEAST 1500 hours to go to an airline. ATP's name will not help you get a job anywhere, either. |
| High Cost of Training | The training program at ATP Flight School is expensive. In fact, better training can be had for as little as half the cost. It's extremely possible to spend $60k on your ratings up to CFI. You will spend $100k+ at ATP for the same thing. That doesn't even factor in the fact that ATP does NOT allow you to work at all to offset the costs, despite the fact that you will sometimes spend weeks at home waiting to fly, and even when you do fly it will be for only a few hours in a day. Not that it would be easy to hold a job given you have no idea what your schedule will be the day before and if you don't show up they will charge you a no show fee. |
| Insufficient Training Program | The nature of the training program may not suit everyone's learning style, leading to potential challenges for some students. Be aware the ATP will not give you any flexibility or leniency. If you cannot get the content, you will be booted from the program. Expect to show up to a checkride and be surprised by how little knowledge you were given, assuming you get an examiner who actually properly evaluates you. |
| Delays | Flight training will experience delays or cancellations due to adverse weather conditions, affecting the training schedule. Expect to sit at home... a lot. Some delays are due to weather, certainly. Some are due to ATP relocating planes and failing to give your training center any (For example, one situation I have seen is when a plane was scheduled for checkrides all day, and corporate took the plane the next day because "nobody was using it" despite the training center having 30+ students and only two planes). Some issues are maintence related, certainly, but expect delays because ATP is slow to re-allocate planes to training centers that need it. |
| Potential Relocation | Students may need to relocate to attend training centers, which could involve additional expenses and logistical challenges. For commercial multi-engine, CFI, MEI, and CFII, you will likely be sent to a distant training center. While the cost of the shared dorm style housing and the travel to and from these locations is covered as a part of the cost of the program, any additional fees such as food, gas, and other expenses are out-of-pocket. |
| Bending the Truth | ATP's claims of 7 (or now 9) month from zero hours to CFI, CFII, and MEI are extremely unrealistic. I have, in my time here, not met anyone who was actually on schedule. It IS possible to be on schedule in certain locations with good weather, such as in Texas. However, this can be done at just about ANY other flight school as well, and is hardly exclusive to ATP. Instead, you will receive the benefit of spending a lot of time, money, and stress on training away from home, constantly being evaluated, and pressured to do things. |
| Costs Being Passed Off | ATP loves to pass as many costs off to you as possible. Traveling? You are paying for food. A plane needs maintence? They grab a student and use their hours to relocate the plane to a maintence center and call it "training" (is straight and level flight for hours on end effective training?) While you are away, they will cover your hotels, but have fun being away from home for sometimes several days and eating out! The best part is when they cannot find you a checkride at your home training center. You'd think that any good company that cannot do their job of finding their client an examiner would pay to send you to one, right? Bzzt! They make you pay to fly to the examiner. You fail, discontinue, or can't start the checkride? Have fun paying for the flight home, just to do it again later! Don't even think about trying to decline to do a checkride, as you will potentially get kicked out of the program for it. |
"I recently got pushed out from ATP and I was in check ride prep (I was struggling with some of the maneuvers). The location I went to was poorly ran and for 4 months we only had 2 instructors and 30 students (a lot of students in private kinda got neglected) plus the instructors just didn’t care and were actively trying and pressuring to get students to quit so that students wouldn’t go take their check ride and fail thus looking bad on them.
Long story short, I’m pretty upset and devastated, left me with 40k in debt and I didn’t even get to my check ride for PPL. I went over to another school that doesn’t have financing and are a lot more chill and helpful, I’ve done one flight and the instructor said I’m way too hard on myself. I guess my question is should I continue and get a personal loan to cover (I’m broke and looking for a job currently) my flight costs? Or, pay off the loan and step back in after a few years?
All in all, don’t do ATP. I had to learn the hard way. Sorry for my venting, I do love flying this just feels like such a punch to the gut. I’m sure other people have had good experiences at ATP but man idk not for me. I don’t like sounding like a negative person cause I hate negativity but after this experience it’s eating at me alive. Just looking for some help and support. Thanks y’all."
"Hello all, wanted to make a post about my most recent experience at ATP flight school! I know that on here, ATP gets a lot of hate. I’m not here to say the hate isn’t warranted, as I have seen myself people get screwed over by that place, but I happened to have a very positive experience there.
I went in credit private (had about 110 TT), and jumped straight into instrument. Bit of a learning curve, as I did all my ppl training in a 172 and was now learning ifr in an archer, but it ended up working out! Did instrument basics for about two weeks in the sim, then jumped in the plane and started flying. Took me 6 weeks, from the time I first got in the plane, to passing my checkride! My instructor was incredibly positive and supportive, and extremely knowledgeable and competent and was just as passionate about me passing as I was!
Next was crew, I’m sure some of y’all have heard about it (basically me and another student ferry atp planes to maintenance facilities under ifr to get experience). Crew was honestly probably the most fun I had flying in a very long time. My primary training center was in Houston, and for crew I was airlined to New York City where I would then fly all the way down to fort myers florida… in an archer. Made a really good friend along the way, we still keep in touch. Honestly your crew partner really makes or breaks the experience, and not only did I get to go to cool places, but my partner was awesome!
Next was commercial, commercial was basically private on steroids. At atp they definitely rush you into the checkride, but not without making sure you’re ready. I remember on my mock checkride, my 8s on pylons and lazy eights were unsat, so I was put on a TIP (training improvement plan). Kinda sucked, but I had to remember I only had 8 flight hours to master all the new maneuvers and landings. My instructor took good care of me, ensured me a LOT of people get put on a TIP at this stage (including himself) and it doesn’t mean I’m a bad pilot in any way shape or form. Started commercial mid June, wrapped things up late August.
After that was multi, and it was quite an experience. Learning to fly a new plane I thought would be much harder, but it wasn’t bad. My cfi had like 1490 hours, but was unbelievably passionate about getting me through that checkride successfully. And she did!
Yes, I opted out of ATPs cfi academy, there was an extremely long backup there, and I felt as though cfi was something I wanted to do back home at my old mom and pop.
Currently working on my cfi now, and all 3 of my instructors at ATP really make me want to be the best cfi I can be for whoever I get as my students.
The negatives: I got extremely burned out, like after my commercial checkride I didn’t even want to think about airplanes. Guess that’s what happens when you cram 2 years worth of certs in 6 months.
The stress. Holyyy shit was I stressed out. Feeling like I had absolutely no time to learn all the shit I had to learn, and feeling the immense pressure of a “fast paced” program really took a toll on me. They weren’t kidding when they said atp wasn’t for everyone…
Saw almost half of my class get kicked out. Some guys I made good friends with too. Kinda sucked cause it’s not like these guys were idiots by any means, they just didn’t grasp the concepts in the insanely small time frame.
I'll try my best to make this short and sweet, but truthfully I am distraught. I began my aviation journey with ATP last June. I did as much research as I possibly could, but nothing prepared me for the worse. They promise that you'll be fully licensed in 6-7 months, and perhaps with most people that's true. Unfortunately for me, everything that could happen to a student happened to me. Two months into the program, I was in solo prvt phase, and ATP has this rule that if you dont fly for a certain period (10 days), you must take an extra flight, which is payed for from your student loan excess. Well we had about 3 full months of the worse weather imaginable, and ended the private phase with $7,500 excess flight time because of this policy. In addition, my mom was fired from her job which delayed my training even more. It took me a total of 6 months to complete my PPL through ATP. I had to take out more money just to help pay bills. Next phase is IR, and it's the same story, I got stuck with a terrible CFi and we never flew because of weather. He eventually moved, which took a week for the school to transfer me to a new instructor. This new instructor was fantastic, but unfortunately she went on a month long trip to see her family, thus another week to transfer me to a new instructor. I am now at the end of IR with a checkride this Saturday, so it took nearly 4 months to get through instrument. Im almost a year in, and I still have 4 more licenses to get, and absolutely no living expense funds left. A few friends helped me out for this month, I feel blessed to have them, but guilty for being selfish following this dream. I want out, because looking at my finances, assuming I pass everything (which is unbelievably uncommon), I will most likely owe $130,000 in student loans. With the pay rate at which instructors get, there is absolutely no way I can repay that loan, as well as my other bills, as a CFI with ATP. Not to mention that I'm not even guaranteed a job, and could potentially wait months for an opening. However, if I discontinue the program, there's a good chance that I will still owe nearly $70,000. 70k for 12 months worth of living expenses, checkride fees, sim fees, overflight time, actual flight time, ground fees, online course fees, fuel surcharge, post and pre-flight fees, and more. In fact, I'll be lucky if I just owe 70k. Not many know about this information, but if you're thinking about ATP, don't! No dream is worth being taken advantage of like this. They make it seem like "Only 96k, and you could be a professional pilot!" Except, 96k is what you start at, then they will charge you for every instance you walk through the door. They offer a "pro-rated" refund for withdrawing, except what they dont tell you about is all the hidden fees until you're already a student. Even then, finding this information is incredibly difficult and hardly any student knows about it.
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