If you look back about a year in these forums, you will see that there was a ton of support for ATP, in fact good luck coming into here and saying something negative without being beaten to death.
You'll also see that Gulfstream Academy is frowned upon, not because they are a bad school, in fact I cant really comment on the quality of education, but because they prey on those who dont know the industry. The set a very poor standard when it comes to an airline pilots quality of life, that being the money part of QOL. They say money doesnt equal happiness, but when you dont make enough to live, not having money can certainly equal unhappiness.
Back in the day pilots would have had to pay for their airline portion of training. We have accomplished upgrading that standard to where almost every airline will pay for your part 121 training, they will pay for your hotel, they will pay you a salary, they will pay for your type rating.
When an airline comes in and asks you to pay for it, and you do, then that tells other airlines that they may able to do the same thing. Eventually leading to all airlines having you pay for training that they once would have paid for. They might have you pay for accomadations while in training, they might not even pay you. This is BAD for the industry.
We want to be paid for our services. We are professionals and expect to be treated as such. Once we are hired by an airline we are professional pilots, thats why we expect to be paid for any training once being hired. Hell in some countries an airline would pay for you to go from PPL through CML and Type. Just a year ago some flight schools were even paying for CML rated pilots to get their CFI certs.
For the most part on these forums, and from what I have seen throughout the industry ATP has a reputation of getting you what you paid for, in the time you were promised. ATP got me everything I wanted, in the time I expected. I am exactly where I had planned to be in the industry right now and without ATP it wouldnt have happened.
Its amazing how many people I fly with on a daily basis who have been to ATP for maybe a single rating, to complete an ATP written, the career program, or instructed at ATP. I would say 5% of those people have nothing but good things to say about ATP, and we all agree that we wouldnt be where we are currently without going to ATP.
But when a company, any company, starts working with a company whom has been regarding as lowering the quality of life for professional pilots, people are going to get pissed. And that's what has happened.
