Originally Posted by
cchouse434
I’m looking into the Atlas Pilot Pathways program, as I’m nearing my R-ATP mins and it sounds like a good opportunity. On the website, Atlas doesn’t advertise a time commitment for the program, but people in this forum keep mentioning “seat lock”. If there is a time commitment, how many years is it, and how much do you have to pay to buy yourself out of the commitment? What is seat lock? Lastly, how many hours a month currently could a 737 FO expect to fly?
Thanks!
The 24 month new hire seat lock binds you to whatever aircraft you're assigned to. New hires without jet experience are currently going to either the 737 or 767. You can bid to the 777 or 747 after the seat lock expires. I am not aware of any training contract, training bond, or anything of that nature. With that being said, I wouldn't be shocked if any airline asked you to cover your ATP-CTP if you bailed after only a few months. 737 and 767 FOs can expect to fly somewhere between 0 and 50 hours a month, depending on season, staffing, their bid, and whether or they're paired with a Line Check Airman (training Captains for new hires and Captain upgrades). It's not unheard of for it to take 2-3 years to get 1000 SIC for an Atlas pilot doing domestic Amazon stuff. Upgrades run 5-10 years on anything other than the 737, which is probably in the 3 to 4-ish range.
You don't address this, but historically those upgrade times (and the lack of timebuilding in general) would have been a bad play if your end goal was somewhere else. These days, however, lack of total time and lack of Turbine PIC doesn't seem to be much of a barrier to employment at passenger legacies. It's still probably a more questionable move if you want to go to UPS or FedEx - solely due to the speed at which you'll build time in your first couple years, though they both do a fair amount of hiring from us.
If you go the traditional route, though, then you're hoping your regional keeps its doors open. At least you can have a nice career here if you never make it to the big 6. It would really suck to be at a regional that closes its doors after you don't fly much for a year or two because you're always getting dropped for DEC IOE and they don't have enough CAs when you aren't with a Line Check Airman.