ATP good choice?

[J-ROD]

I am about to graduate from high school and I have began looking into choices of where to go. I looked at ERAU and it is very expensive and from what some people say it is pointless to spend the crazy amount of money. I have looked at other schools and I happened to stumble across ATP. I like it because there are 2 locations in the Dallas area (where I live) and the course is fast paced, which is what makes me wonder if that is good to do? 10 months? I know I have to attend college for at least 2 years and so on....I will be doing 4. All in all, is ATP a good way to go if I want to fly w/ major airlines one day? Or are airlines looking for a better education? I know this is all out of order and confusing, but anything will help.
THANKS!!

 

[Godzgreatgift]

ATP is a great way to go but you said your just out of high school? Get an education first. Finish your degree then your training can come later. That's how I would put it. Yes, without a degree you'll land a regional job but forget if the majors pick anyone up without a degree. And, hell yes a regional will furlough you if the pilot shortage comes to a stop and they need to lay off pilots, they will lay those off without a degree first. Personally, I initially enrolled into a professional pilot degree, but I changed it to an economics major my sophmore year only because I feared if I lose my medical, I won't be able to fly for the airlines which would mean no income and a Professional Pilot degree wouldn't do me any good at the time where my medical fails on me. Therefore, also choose your major wisely. You can also attend school and do the self pace with ATP if you don't want to delay your training.

 

[Gumps]

"And, hell yes a regional will furlough you if the pilot shortage comes to a stop and they need to lay off pilots, they will lay those off without a degree first." -Godzgreatgift

Slow down there golden child...
Layoffs are based on seniority. The last pilot hired is the first pilot laid off. Hence the expression, "Seniority is everything." -Well, actually that idea applies to a lot of things in the industry. Do you think a airline would retain the green ERAU grad FO and bench a senior captain 'cause he graduated from the school of hard knocks instead? Otherwise, your advice is on par with what most here will say.

 

[MSUDAWG]

I am about to graduate from high school and I have began looking into choices of where to go. I looked at ERAU and it is very expensive and from what some people say it is pointless to spend the crazy amount of money. I have looked at other schools and I happened to stumble across ATP. I like it because there are 2 locations in the Dallas area (where I live) and the course is fast paced, which is what makes me wonder if that is good to do? 10 months? I know I have to attend college for at least 2 years and so on....I will be doing 4. All in all, is ATP a good way to go if I want to fly w/ major airlines one day? Or are airlines looking for a better education? I know this is all out of order and confusing, but anything will help.
THANKS!!

Go to college and get your ratings at an FBO. It might take a little longer but its cheaper, in fact a LOT cheaper and you get the same ratings. Then find a job as a contract pilot or traffic watch pilot. College is busy and the last thing you need is someone rushing you through your ratings just to get done so they can get there 55k or whatever they charge now. Enjoy it, do it at your own pace and most importantly ENJOY COLLEGE! I would do anything to go back to college now. I got my ratings while in college and i do not regret anything. Get your ratings in college and build time, graduate and get a job....

My vote is for the FBO

ATP 1
FBO 1

 

[ttrcali]

Watchout!!! i am just about to finish my stent with ATP and i am not impressed. They are running a scam. The VP Jim Kisarsky has been kicking people out of the cfi program before they start. I was one of the people. I was not one of the people that fell behind. I had all my writens done and was actually a week ahead of the program. I asked for an explination and was told that they can kick you out for any reason at any time. Nothing else was offered. They do the minimum to get you to pass a checkride on your first or second try. This company has committed fraud with me and a number of other people that i have talked to. I strongly recomend training elseware. Unless you want to pay $55k to be treated horribly by dispatch (Marty) for the entirety of your training.

 

[v1valarob]

They are running a scam. The VP Jim Kisarsky has been kicking people out of the cfi program before they start. I was one of the people. I was not one of the people that fell behind. I had all my writens done and was actually a week ahead of the program. I asked for an explination and was told that they can kick you out for any reason at any time.

Uhhhh. I really dont believe you. In my experience with ATP, they do not kick people out for no reason. The people I did see get kicked out, definitely did something to get kicked out.

ATP is not running a scam. I hate to sound like Im drinking the kool aid, but I think ATP is one of the few schools who actually get you what they promise.

-Rob

 

[ttrcali]

I 100% disagree. You are definately entitled to you opinion. I am allowed to finish my commercial. But not attend cfi school. In the docs you signed, if you drop out of cfi school you only get back 2k. An instructor forgot to tell a student when his check ride was. The student missed it and Jim kisarski called him and kicked him out of school.
Did you attend atp? And if you did was the 25 days to get your xcountries done in affect. If not, you have to finish all writens within 25 days or you are kicked out. I was told "you can't pull the customer card because we have your money and we don't care" that was from mike in dispatch. They don't offer any ground school, but make you sign off that you received it. Then dispatch and management treats you horrible the entire time you train.
Which part of this prepares you for the airlines? Even the dpe's say that all ATP does is train you enough to pass a checkride, nothing more.

 

[Ducky]

what in the heck is going on here? ttrcali where did you went for your location?

 

[v1valarob]

I 100% disagree. You are definately entitled to you opinion. I am allowed to finish my commercial. But not attend cfi school. In the docs you signed, if you drop out of cfi school you only get back 2k. An instructor forgot to tell a student when his check ride was. The student missed it and Jim kisarski called him and kicked him out of school.
Did you attend atp? And if you did was the 25 days to get your xcountries done in affect. If not, you have to finish all writens within 25 days or you are kicked out. I was told "you can't pull the customer card because we have your money and we don't care" that was from mike in dispatch. They don't offer any ground school, but make you sign off that you received it. Then dispatch and management treats you horrible the entire time you train.
Which part of this prepares you for the airlines? Even the dpe's say that all ATP does is train you enough to pass a checkride, nothing more.

I did attend ATP. Its not 25 days to finish cross countries, its 25 days to have all your writtens finished and your CFI pre-test done. They where tired of people showing up to CFI school with no writtens. Dispatch will easily get your XCs done in 25 days. I did sign that paper, and I also had Mike from dispatch call me and leave a message on my phone that went something like this "Robert, its been 26 days. I dont have your writtens here. Give me a call and let me know if you want the money, or the 15 hours of seminole time." I was a little confused and called him, turned out the CFI didnt fax in my test result. They got it all sorted and I was off to CFI school as planned.

Your right they don't offer ground school, you know going in that its a self-study program. Its part 61 not 141. When you take a practical exam you don't sign anything saying you where given ground. A CFI gives you an endorsement saying they believe you are knowledgeable under what ever FAR, if you don't feel that the CFI prepared you enough for the ride, and that he/she falsely signed you off then you should contact the FAA and let them know.

I will agree that dispatch are not the nicest people, but its their job to push you through the program as fast as possible. Isnt that what you signed up for? A 90 day FAST TRACK program.

And I bet that DPE that told you that "all ATP does is train you for the ride..." still collects his cash from ATP students and still signs off on licenses. Again, if you feel that he is not following the guidelines that the FAA sets forth, contact the FAA with your complaint.

I personally think there is something else going on. In another thread you said that management just wants you to fail or quit. They run a business, why in the world would they do that? They want you to pass, so that you can pass along your "success story" and get others to sign off. I have seen 2 people get kicked out of ATPs 90 day program, and both deserved it. One of them posted a video on their myspace of a Seminole doing a barrel roll and claimed it was his. The other was a chick who took over 30 days for her ppl-me, and just kept screwing everyone around.

-Rob

 

[SIUav8er]

I did attend ATP. Its not 25 days to finish cross countries, its 25 days to have all your writtens finished and your CFI pre-test done. They where tired of people showing up to CFI school with no writtens. Dispatch will easily get your XCs done in 25 days. I did sign that paper, and I also had Mike from dispatch call me and leave a message on my phone that went something like this "Robert, its been 26 days. I dont have your writtens here. Give me a call and let me know if you want the money, or the 15 hours of seminole time." I was a little confused and called him, turned out the CFI didnt fax in my test result. They got it all sorted and I was off to CFI school as planned.

Your right they don't offer ground school, you know going in that its a self-study program. Its part 61 not 141. When you take a practical exam you don't sign anything saying you where given ground. A CFI gives you an endorsement saying they believe you are knowledgeable under what ever FAR, if you don't feel that the CFI prepared you enough for the ride, and that he/she falsely signed you off then you should contact the FAA and let them know.

I will agree that dispatch are not the nicest people, but its their job to push you through the program as fast as possible. Isnt that what you signed up for? A 90 day FAST TRACK program.

And I bet that DPE that told you that "all ATP does is train you for the ride..." still collects his cash from ATP students and still signs off on licenses. Again, if you feel that he is not following the guidelines that the FAA sets forth, contact the FAA with your complaint.

I personally think there is something else going on. In another thread you said that management just wants you to fail or quit. They run a business, why in the world would they do that? They want you to pass, so that you can pass along your "success story" and get others to sign off. I have seen 2 people get kicked out of ATPs 90 day program, and both deserved it. One of them posted a video on their myspace of a Seminole doing a barrel roll and claimed it was his. The other was a chick who took over 30 days for her ppl-me, and just kept screwing everyone around.

-Rob

:yeahthat: Rob is right here.

I 100% disagree. You are definately entitled to you opinion. I am allowed to finish my commercial. But not attend cfi school. In the docs you signed, if you drop out of cfi school you only get back 2k. An instructor forgot to tell a student when his check ride was. The student missed it and Jim kisarski called him and kicked him out of school.
Did you attend atp? And if you did was the 25 days to get your xcountries done in affect. If not, you have to finish all writens within 25 days or you are kicked out. I was told "you can't pull the customer card because we have your money and we don't care" that was from mike in dispatch. They don't offer any ground school, but make you sign off that you received it. Then dispatch and management treats you horrible the entire time you train.
Which part of this prepares you for the airlines? Even the dpe's say that all ATP does is train you enough to pass a checkride, nothing more.

Its too bad ATP didnt work out for you, but it is clear that you got kicked out for a reason that you are just not sharing with us here. Im sure youre pissed, but you should post the whole story. As Rob said, they dont kick people out for no reason. Again, sorry to hear about youre experience

 

[Gumps]

So here's what I'm getting from all of this: Don't screw around at ATP or, "You'll be flying a cargo plane fulla rubber dog ##### outa Hong Kong." Except that a 135 international gig sounds pretty cool right now...

I'm starting May 5th and hope I have a better experience.

 

[Teller1900]

I did attend ATP. Its not 25 days to finish cross countries, its 25 days to have all your writtens finished and your CFI pre-test done. They where tired of people showing up to CFI school with no writtens. Dispatch will easily get your XCs done in 25 days. I did sign that paper, and I also had Mike from dispatch call me and leave a message on my phone that went something like this "Robert, its been 26 days. I dont have your writtens here. Give me a call and let me know if you want the money, or the 15 hours of seminole time." I was a little confused and called him, turned out the CFI didnt fax in my test result. They got it all sorted and I was off to CFI school as planned.

Your right they don't offer ground school, you know going in that its a self-study program. Its part 61 not 141. When you take a practical exam you don't sign anything saying you where given ground. A CFI gives you an endorsement saying they believe you are knowledgeable under what ever FAR, if you don't feel that the CFI prepared you enough for the ride, and that he/she falsely signed you off then you should contact the FAA and let them know.

I will agree that dispatch are not the nicest people, but its their job to push you through the program as fast as possible. Isnt that what you signed up for? A 90 day FAST TRACK program.

And I bet that DPE that told you that "all ATP does is train you for the ride..." still collects his cash from ATP students and still signs off on licenses. Again, if you feel that he is not following the guidelines that the FAA sets forth, contact the FAA with your complaint.

I personally think there is something else going on. In another thread you said that management just wants you to fail or quit. They run a business, why in the world would they do that? They want you to pass, so that you can pass along your "success story" and get others to sign off. I have seen 2 people get kicked out of ATPs 90 day program, and both deserved it. One of them posted a video on their myspace of a Seminole doing a barrel roll and claimed it was his. The other was a chick who took over 30 days for her ppl-me, and just kept screwing everyone around.

-Rob

:yeahthat:

I saw two people get kicked out while I was there. One busted his IR ride three times on the same thing each time, the other wasn't technically kicked out, just bumped from the 90 day to the 10month program when they had to push his CAMEL checkride back two weeks because he hadn't finished the written. Dispatch certainly is annoying, but if you just follow their (simple) rules, study hard, work hard, and don't do something stupid, you'll be fine. They gain nothing by randomly kicking people out...it makes no sense for a business that is built on personal recommendations. I got done in 94 days (having taken three days off in between my MEI and II checkrides to interview - and get hired - at Colgan). All of my roommates from PHX and VGT finished within +-5 days of the 90 day goal. Of all the people at the PHX location while I was there, only two got kicked out, and for good reason. Something tells me something else must've been going on.

 

[DE727UPS]

As always with this forum, anyone who is critical of ATP is assumed to be wrong, with no argument, and gets jumped on by the pro-ATP crowd. Very par for the course around here.

Just an observation. It's hard to miss.....

 

[ttrcali]

DE727 said it right. You can be a pessamist and think there was something i did. I was signed up and leaving for Vegas in the morning. I got a call out of the blue and was told not to go to cfi school. As for the business side, for all to look at. Go to the jacksonville better business bureau website and see how atp is rated within their standards.

 

[Clocks]

When you take a practical exam you don't sign anything saying you where given ground.

Your wrong on this, but I still luv u

61.105 (privates)
61.125 (commercial)
61.65 (instrument)

The ground training must be received and logged on several specific topics. One of our DEs went word by word to make sure each topic was specifically mentioned in the ground training log.

As always with this forum, anyone who is critical of ATP is assumed to be wrong, with no argument, and gets jumped on by the pro-ATP crowd. Very par for the course around here.

Just an observation. It's hard to miss.....

His story is not really backed up by anyone else's experience or first hand knowledge. He might be right, he was minding his own business, the perfect little pilot, when JK smited him from above out of spite. Or, more likely, there was something else going on. Records are locked when someone leaves the program, so the only person that could respond to his claims is ATP admin people, which isn't going to happen. So he can claim JK came to his home and kicked his dog (which DE727 would immediately accept as fact), and there isn't anything anyone can say to dispute it except by posting their own experiences. I'll happily talk about what I think is wrong with ATP (mx at my location, the fact that 4 hours for the SE-CFI is ridiculous). But from my experience kicking people out for no reason isn't one of them.

 

[SteveC]

<snip>

So he can claim JK came to his home and kicked his dog (which DE727 would immediately accept as fact)

<snip>

To be fair, I've only heard DE727 harp on a couple of aspects of ATP's program, and he has even been known to recommend ATP for certain situations (quick CFI course maybe? I forget...). He has always been consistent and specific about why he disagrees with those certain aspects of the program, and as far as I can recall has never bashed any personnel that work there. To paint him as doing nothing but bashing ATP for any and all reasons is incorrect, and unfair.

[/personal opinion mode]

 

[Clocks]

To be fair, I've only heard DE727 harp on a couple of aspects of ATP's program, and he has even been known to recommend ATP for certain situations (quick CFI course maybe? I forget...). He has always been consistent and specific about why he disagrees with those certain aspects of the program, and as far as I can recall has never bashed any personnel that work there. To paint him as doing nothing but bashing ATP for any and all reasons is incorrect, and unfair.

[/personal opinion mode]

Hey that's super. But unfortunately has nothing to do with what DE727 posted in this thread.

What happened:
-Someone made a really radical claim
-Several people disagreed
-DE727 paints it as an innocent victim getting "jumped on" by the pro-ATP crowd (take a look at the other thread where DE nitpicks just to be able to flame an ATP grad who said ATP was "the right choice", also a fellow UPS pilot. But of course no critical posts when someone makes a wild anti-ATP claim)

He provided no insight, facts, advice, evidence, or proof. Just whipped out a cute one-liner and bashed everyone who posts on this board in one trollish stroke. On the rare occasions that DE727 posts something constructive on the ATP forums I usually agree with his opinions about ATP. I just can't stand the way he posts really trolling garbage here so often (then gets people to ride to his defense because he actually contributes on other forums). It would be great if we could read advice instead of sarcasm and condescending statements from someone with his experience, but that's just the ATP forum wanting to "quiet dissension"....right.

 

[SteveC]

Ah, so if he throws out what you believe to be a troll-ish one-liner it's OK for you to do the same, is that the criteria?

 

[Clocks]

Ah, so if he throws out what you believe to be a troll-ish one-liner it's OK for you to do the same, is that the criteria?

One sentence in an otherwise on-topic and constructive post? I think that's a far stretch from DE727's post.

 

[v1valarob]

DE727 said it right. You can be a pessamist and think there was something i did. I was signed up and leaving for Vegas in the morning. I got a call out of the blue and was told not to go to cfi school. As for the business side, for all to look at. Go to the jacksonville better business bureau website and see how atp is rated within their standards.

What location did you start the 90 day program with?

-Rob