The "cost" associated with the AA program isn't any different than the costs of pursuing on your own, other than there is a loan involved. The difference between doing on your own, or going with Jet Blue, is that AA provides the loan to cover your expenses which is then deferred while you pursue your flight hours AND until you get a job. That's what makes that program unique. If you can afford the training and the time to get your hours without a loan, that's great, but the cost of entry to becoming a pilot is expensive and prohibitive to many and the aim of the program is to help overcome that knowing that there is a pending shortage of pilots.
Originally Posted by
FlightLevel350
I would find out if with the AA Academy you still get the new hire bonus. I don’t know the answer to this, but if you don’t then that is not very good so long as regionals continue to offer them. If it gets to the point where most of them do away with them and simply restructure their hourly compensation then I wouldn’t worry about that so much.
It seems to me that the AA Academy just like the JetBlue one, drags on for a while. They stick you to their timeline and charge a ton of money for it. I also don’t think that they are highly selective, giving them no prestige. If you qualify for the loan you pretty much get in, and once you’re in if you can’t hack it they throw you out but this goes for anything in aviation. If you can’t hack the material or the actual flying you simply don’t move on to the next step, same as in any mom and pop flight school.
ATP does offer speed plus with them you are able to get that new hire bonus. Which with some regionals can be up to 20k towards paying off that big loan. Like I said, I’m not sure that AA offers this. When I skimmed their website I didn’t see any of that. Perhaps they do offer it.
You should look online at some of the reviews of ATP, it’s also not very hard to do the math and figure out the true cost per flight hour.
The thing that is also very dumb about ATP is that they are against you holding a job while in training. This is 9 months without even a little part time job which if you haven’t saved money to survive that time period, it only adds to your debt. They also say that this is because it’s a very involved program which it is but the real reason is that your schedule must be completely open so that they can fit you in according to theirs. Which is fine, but again, for 90k it’s not that fine. They also encourage that before starting you study ahead and take almost all your written exams. Which any responsible student would of course do, but again, with a great portion of the ground stuff out of the way why can’t we hold a little part time job? Oh, that’s right. It’s that ATP schedule.
Lastly, I’m of the belief that given the proper information, people can do anything they want with their money. There is really nothing wrong with entering a program like ATP or one of the newer academies. I’ve made plenty of decisions in my life where I know it’s not the best economical decision, but I’m able to point at a sum and say I’m over paying here but that fine since it’s something that I need now or it’s my best option at the moment. The key is having the information to make an informed decision.
For example, it’s difficult to get a loan. If ATP offers you one, great. AA Academy advertises to be even more loan friendly to young people. That’s great as well. When you look at a long term pilot career. Perhaps attaining more debt early on is offset by better seniority and money later in life.
I can go on and on. There is really no right and wrong answer.
As for myself, my plan is to find a school which allows me to get my ratings in a timely manner for a price range around 45k. I’ve been studying as much as I can, all while managing to put away around 15k for training. That leaves a loan of about 30k. A regional bonus should technically cover at least half of that. Regardless, 30k is a smaller loan. When you triple that, due to interest alone you end up that much deeper in the hole. Anyways, I feel like writing a book here. Haha... best of luck mate!