Starting a new adventure

Hello everyone, my name is Juan and I am 25 yo. I’ve been working for AA since I am 19, I was a flight attendant for two years and now I work in Premium Services at DCA airport. I always had the dream of becoming a commercial pilot but for some reason it always seemed unreachable to me, recently I decided to make my dreams true and start searching for flying schools. I am very interested in the ATP program and please if you have any advice for me please write it down. I already did my first class medical exam, I already got it with me. I started my financial process for the loan and thankfully it went well. I am planning on keeping my AA job part time only for the weekends, since I want to go to ATP Monday through Fridays, and whenever I need to go to class during the weekend my job is very flexible to arrange that. My goal is to start with Envoy since is AA wholly owned airline, or PSA. Do you guys think that will be a possibility? Is envoy or PSA Airlines easy to get into after ATP? And also, I would like to learn more from the airline tuition reimbursement. I would appreciate any advice or info you could provide me. Thanks!

Congrats Juan! You’re definitely on your way! Right now is probably the best time to get started in this industry as we’re in a full-blown pilot shortage and the Regionals are fighting over pilots. While I would NEVER have said this in the past, provided you’re successful in your training, you WILL get hired at the Regional of your choice.

As far as advice goes I recommend you spend some time reading through this forum as that’s why it was created. As always we recommend you complete as many (if not all) of the FAA Knowledge exams as that will greatly lighten your load. I also need to say regardless of how flexible your job is, working weekends is really not recommended. This training is INTENSE and while you may not be flying on some weekends you’ll definitely be studying. This is a HUGE investment and you really need to give it your full attention. Checkride failures are no joke, more than 2 can and will effect your career. That said it’s your money and your career.

As far as details on the Tuition Reimbursement I recommend you contact ATP Admin or the Regionals directly. They can give you full details and possibly some more advice on your path and what they’re looking for.

Adam

JC,

I would very strongly recommend against you trying to work while in the program. Yes, you will have weekends off, but you will need that time to study. This is a highly condensed program, every spare minute needs to be spent in the books. Imagine that you have a checkride on Monday and work all weekend. You show up for the checkride exhausted and end up failing it. Do that twice and you could have some real issues that might hold you back in your career progression. Also, weekends are sometimes used to make up for delays caused by weather.

Chris