ATP Flight School

How can I talk about joining at this location since it's the closest to me? I'm looking at early next year since I am still finishing Private.

After a fantastic intro flight and learning more about the Airline Career Pilot Program that ATP offered I decided to go all in. After finishing up the program, I can honestly say I had a heck of an experience and the support cast around RDU was nothing short of amazing. My instructors were all amazing in their efforts of helping me achieve my goals while also protecting the investment I made. The professionalism and emphasis on safety was big for me when choosing a flight school and ATP lived up to it without a doubt. I was able to successfully turn around the investment I made and now I get paid to fly. Couldn't have done it without the help of the people at ATP-RDU. If this is something that interest you....Fly ATP

The ATP RDU location was nothing short of a pleasant experience during my time there. From the instructors to the aircraft fleet to the training center environment, everything was professional and the training was high quality and the best in the game. The atmosphere at the RDU location is un paralleled and better than most other flight schools. I would recommend not only ATP but the RDU location to anyone who even has the slightest interest in flying. The instructors and students at the RDU location will make your experience unlike any other! Check it out!

I truly am so thankful that I chose ATP for my training. There are many pros to doing such a fast paced program, but I will also share the difficulties as well.

ATP is one of the only flight schools that has an option to take out a student loan with either Wells Fargo or Sallie Mae. There’s no way I would be able to finish in 9 months with all of my certs paying out of pocket.

It’s an extremely fast program, if you truly work as hard as possible. You’ll be done in 9 months (granted, if weather works in your favor), and another year and a half of instructing, you’ll be at the airlines. It’s about as much time as receiving your associates degree, 2 years. Except, you’ll be qualified to work for the airlines. Seniority is everything in the airlines. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll finish and become a first officer and gain that seniority. Compared to a four year degree such as liberty, you’ll be done two years sooner, giving you more seniority. That was a huge factor for me when deciding to enroll at ATP. If you choose the ATP route and have no prior college experience, you are able to transfer credits to an aviation degree (I’m looking at transferring my credits to Liberty online. Different schools will tell you exactly how many credits they will take for each of your certs).

My instructor, Alexis from RDU, was the loveliest person I’ve ever met. She cared deeply for the success of her students and it showed tremendously. She was always on my side, and not consumed with only reaching her 1500 hours. If you are a hard working student, she understood if life came up and you weren’t able to fly for that day. She was my instructor for my entire duration at ATP, and I couldn’t say enough lovely things about her.

I personally loved the fact that this program was self study, opposed to sitting in a college classroom every day. Everything we needed to learn was at our fingertips, online on the student portal and with King’s School. I was able to study my material the night prior, then go into the training center and work with other students and instructors by quizzing eachother. Some people don’t do well with this type of learning however. Some people like more of a structured program with the classroom environment. ATP is mostly self study, then you work with other students and instructors to answer the material you may have questions in.

Airlines partner with ATP, such as Envoy, Piedmont, PSA, and many others you can find online. ATP is the biggest flight school in America, so the regionals are trying to recruit pilots from ATP to work for them. Airlines partner with many other schools as well, which you can find online. ATP always hosted different regionals to come in and present their company to us. This helped me narrow down which regional I wanted to go to. When I was a flight attendant, every pilot I spoke with regarding my desire to become a pilot told me to go with ATP.

You will most likely have a job once you finish ATP. If you don’t bust more than two checkrides (they still except 3 if they evaluate your performance and determine your ability), and have a clean record, you will have a job. If you do your absolute best and are respectful of your instructors and peers, and are safe, you will get a job offer. This was huge for me. Being a student for 9 months, then making the transition from student to instructor can be intimidating. But working for a company where you’re familiar with the policies and aircraft can make the transition much easier.

I’m truly thankful for my time at ATP and the instructors who made my time there as a student professional and exciting. ATP isn’t for everyone though. There’s been many students that have had to dropout because they don’t put in the required effort to be successful. My tips for you are to be at your training center every day, coming two hours before each flight to plan, study, and hop on the sim. Study every night and come in in the morning and work with other students. ATP is everything that you make it.

Best of luck!