1500 Hour Rule

How does the FAA final rule affect me?

The FAA recently released final regulations, mandated by the Airline Safety Act of 2010, after three years of development and industry feedback. Regulations now require airline flight crewmembers, including first officers, to hold an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate.

As a career-focused pilot, the new regulations have no impact on the factors affecting your training decision today: your objective to build qualifications and get hired quickly remains unchanged. In the long-run, ATP expects the regulations will have a positive impact on career earnings due to further pilot supply constraints.

Since ATP is the largest provider of pilots to the regional airlines, both ATP and airlines adapted to the new rules when they were originally proposed in 2012. Airlines raised their minimum flight time requirements to 1500 hours and ATP expanded existing relationships with top-tier regional airline alliances.

Under new letters of agreement with ATP, airlines are recruiting ATP pilots earlier in training, and have established airline-sponsored career tracks for Airline Career Pilot Program students. The results have already proven highly successful for ATP graduates.

ATP is Your Airline Career Solution

ATP gets you to an airline job faster than any other flight school, academy, or university.
ATP has placement agreements with top-tier regional airlines and large-aircraft charter companies.
As an instructor for ATP, you become employable by the airlines and charter companies within two years of graduating.
Major airlines will be hiring thousands of pilots over the next 10 years due to growth and age 65 retirements. Delta, American, United Airlines^® and other large carriers are hiring now.

Seniority is Everything — Get there First with ATP

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Airline Sponsored Career Track

ATP's airline alliances include regional airlines like CommuteAir, Republic, and Envoy Air. Each of these airlines participate in airline sponsored career tracks for ATP graduates. Airline-Sponsored means that these airlines have evaluated the end to end pilot training solution offered by ATP, acknowledge the quality of training, and integrate their hiring processes with ATP's pilot pool.

Seniority is Everything

“Seniority is everything” expresses how important it is to enter the seniority system as quickly as possible. Your entire career's earnings depend on how quickly you get your seniority number. With a mandatory retirement at age 65, the best way to maximize your earnings and advancement is to get hired at the earliest opportunity. Nobody understands this better than ATP, where our management team is led by airline pilots who retired from careers with FedEx and American Airlines.

ATP helps you reach airline employment faster than any other flight training option, and does so by helping you become a paid flight instructor faster. ATP's Airline Career Pilot Program is the most cost- and time-efficient route to attaining flight instructor certificates.

To best evaluate your flight training options, you need to understand how airline seniority works, why it's so important, and how it affects your lifetime earnings and quality-of-life throughout your career.

Flight Instructing to Meet Airline Transport Pilot Certificate Minimums

Flight instructing is some of the best experience any pilot can gain. It provides a strong foundation on which to build in airline new hire training. Plus, the airlines appreciate the pilot in command and aeronautical decision making skills that are part of daily life as a flight instructor.

Upon graduating from the Airline Career Pilot Program, you will have the certification and ratings you need to start flying as a flight instructor and gain the flight time required by airlines. With your single-engine and instrument instructor ratings, you will be amongst the most competitive and qualified as you advanced in your career.

As you work as a flight instructor, you will build relationships that last a lifetime. You will become a part of a network of highly successful professional aviators who will offer great connections later in your career. ATP instructors become part of the largest Alumni Network of any flight training organization in the United States, which will benefit them throughout their careers.

Getting Your Airline Transport Pilot Certificate

Beginning in August, 2014, a new Airline Transport Pilot Certification Training Program will become a prerequisite for the Airline Transport Pilot Knowledge Test. We expect that the regionals will integrate the Airline Transport Pilot certification into their part 121 training programs, or work with ATP to produce an airline sponsored program contracted to ATP.

Regardless of the delivery model, your first step is to focus on flight training, then on building flight experience as a flight instructor. The new Airline Transport Pilot certification process has little impact on your decisions at this early stage of your career.

Seniority is Everything — Get there First with ATP

Any other flight training option leaves you on your own to bridge the gap from graduate to airline job. The fact is that ATP is in a unique position to provide your pilot career solution with a proven model that has worked for thousands of airline pilots. The Airline Career Pilot Program reduces the unknowns and allows you to focus on your training – with confidence – knowing that you're backed by a team of airline professionals whose mission is your career development.

ATP's Airline Career Solution:

Financing – so you can fund your training from start to finish.
Training Centers, Aircraft, and Maintenance Facilities – the assets to operate the nation's largest and most successful pilot training program.
Airline Placement – consistent follow-through on our commitment to your career development.
Seniority is Everything – Get there First with ATP

Seniority is Everything – Get there First with ATP