Just finished a midnight to 4 AM sim session at Chautauqua Airlines and thought I'd get my Jetcareers fix in before going to sleep for the day. After seeing this post, I have to add a thought:
When you are deciding on a flight school, don't simply compare prices and total hours received. Instead think about where you want to be in a year, five years, ten years, etc. You should then decide on the school that gives you the best opportunity to achieve your goals. It is the same approach to choosing any advanced learning institution (i.e. a university, college, masters program, etc.). If you are smart, you don't just pick the university that offers the best "bang for your buck", but instead look for a place that will give you the skills to truly succeed in your chosen profession.
I can tell you from experience that attending ATP's Career Pilot Program was the best preparation I could have had for the extremely fast paced and intensive training at the airline. Since ATP is owned by a current Fed Ex captain and run by American pilots, the whole course is designed to give you a taste of what you are in for once you get the call from the airline -- i.e. you are given a lot of information in a relatively short period of time, and you are then expected to be a hard working professional in your approach to preparing for the written, the oral and the checkride.
That ATP manages to continuously graduate extremely competant and safe pilots in such an intensive training environment is a testament to the hard work put in by the management who run the company and by the entire staff of flight instructors (even you guys and gals on the phones in JAX
).
If you choose ATP and are willing to do the work necessary to succeed in aviation, you will not be sorry.