are atp graduates of the fast track doing financially well as a cfi?

are you able to pay your loans on on time with a cfi salary plus atp rent

ATP provides furnished apartments, all bills paid, rooming with other instructors for $300/mo . You are paid on how much you fly plus a monthly retainer, so its up to you to get yourself in the air! My roommate has loans, and its tough, but he has enough to pay his bills and go out for a few beers and a dinner a month.

It seriously depends on how much debt you racked up and what your repayment terms are. There are option with many loans that can help out if needed when on a low income. Not sure if their would be a change to your credit score if using those options.

Seriously recommend you don't do loans.

Oh come on, what could possibly go wrong? Everyone knows there's a Pilot Shortage Right Around The Corner.

I answered his question without a personal opinion. Where have I gone wrong.


Don't get any loans if you can. It is slower but the repayment really sucks.

Apartments are crap, short answer your going to be paying off the loan for a while. The salary is really bad now. I knew instructors making a grand a month minus 300 for housing and then minus 80 for tax, so about 680 was normal take home.Really bad setup...

Wow you can make more on welfare! Depressing

Don't forget after ATP drops you, you're only guaranteed for 6 months and they need to be able to place the newly CFI's in their guaranteed spots. So if you are left jobless, your loans are still due. When you move on to a regional, no housing is provided and the pay is just as bad, but now you need to cover all your expenses. Is it worth it to you to love in poverty to fly a jet?

I instructed at ATP for about 4 months. $1,600 first month. $1,950 2nd month, $2,750 the 3rd, and $2,100 the 4th. Before taxes of course. I was at LZU, so the CFI classes kept us busy and I had quite a few sign offs per month. The $100 per checkride pass is where I made a good bit of my $. I think one month I had 12 or 13 checkride passes, the one I made $2,750. I also flew a good bit too, ~80 hrs a month.

The pay varies by quite a bit, it all depends on where you're instructing and what the student load is like there, as well as what type of programs your students are going through. I did a lot of the multi-add on's, CFII/MEI add-on's and quick ATP programs, so it was easy to rack up the $ in checkride passes.

Unless something has changed drastically since I was there (Feb-June '11) I don't see how someone could only make $1,000 a month. When I was there we were paid a minimum of $800, and then $7.50 per flight hour, or $12 per flight hour (if it was a self paced or Mountain State student), plus $7.50 for FTD time if you had a career student + $100 per checkride pass.

Curious. You're paid as a 1099 contractor, right?

At that rate, what level of taxes are you paying?

This.... Its still the same and some of the people commenting on this thread are not quite up to date with whats really going on... I made $1350 first month (half month pay) $2200 second month and right now I'm on average to hit about $2200 this month with a bunch of bad weather keeping us grounded.. And right now I should hit about 80-90 hrs this month.

Are you currently working to where you could save up a large portion of the cash needed to finance this endeavor?

I'm not sure what your tolerance for debt is but I went through all of school never carrying any debt (no credit balance, and no car loan) except for my student loans. Basically my only monthly bills were rent and utilities. Now that I'm paying my loans I absolutely LOATHE them! The need to pay several hundred dollars a month makes me constantly paranoid about losing my job and constantly thinking of other ways to make money. It has also turned me into the biggest cheap ass you'll ever meet which I've done so I can make double and sometimes triple payments on my debt. I want that monster gone!

Moral of the story... if you're currently working and are capable of cutting back on things to save up $40k or so then I would do that for a couple years when it's an OPTION rather than rack up the debt and make the same monthly deposits out of NECESSITY. That's my opinion and I, along with many others here are speaking from experience.

I'm also not very religious at all but the bible does say this....

That's good but... the guys I knew did not get as many students and hours. So lets say they flew 40 hours in plane and 40hrs in sim. And lets say they had a base pay of 750. And let's assume no MSU students. So 750 plus 80 hours of work X 7.5 equals 1350. Now 1350 minus lets say 100 taxes. 1250 minus 300 for housing equals 950. So 950 dollars take home pay for 80 hours of work is tough. I don't mean any disrespect. These guys put in about 35 hours of ground time a student, which is not considered payed. So you do not get payed for ground school. So if they have 40 of sim, 40 hours of flight, and 40 hours of ground they only make 900 dollars take home for 120 hours of work... Add like maybe 300 dollars a month for checkride passes since their location wasn't that busy and students that probably didn't study. So 3 checkride passes plus 950=1250x12= salary take home average 15000. Pretty hard to pay off loans and everything else that comes with life.



Source allatps.com
While at your assigned Training Center:

• $750-$1000 per Month Retainer (varies by training center), PLUS
• $100 On-Time, First-Time Checkride Pass Bonus for each student, PLUS
• $7.50-$12.50 per Flight & FTD Hour (varies by program), PLUS
• $15 per FAA Exam Proctored
• Housing Available at Training Centers
  for $300 per Month (furnished, no lease required)

Now I agree that this is place really helps get pilots into the airlines faster and am trying not to offend anyone, but the guys I knew are consider great friends were really having a hard time making ends meet.

What do you mean after ATP drops you? This is a temporary job?

I consistently have four students (2 fast track, 1 self paced, 1 MSU), about 5 checkrides per month. I'll actually have 6 for about a week, but two are commercial and cfi finish up.

Lets say I fly an average of 6 hrs a day, 7 days a week in good weather, equaling 42 hrs a week and 4 sims a week to a grad total of 48 hrs of pay. Thats $45/day, equaling $1350 + $750 retainer = $2100 + $500 (check ride bonuses) = $2600/mo. There are no taxes taken out of your pay as you are a contractor, and must file 1099's... I don't live in ATP apartments, but if you do, then $2300/mo all bills paid, furnished temporary apt is not a bad deal... Just gotta work for it.

If you have no students, it sucks, but if you have enough students to fill your schedule then the pay is good.

If you actually can get to fly for 6hrs/day what does that mean for hours at work? I used to work 10-12hrs/day at a minimum when you have to be there at 6am for checkrides, have gaps in the schedule because equipment availability (especially FTD) and then have to complete things like night flights or have proctor duty. Its not everyday but more often than not how many hours a week do you work? Most ATP instructors get maybe 1 day off a month and then they have to explain why their students aren't flying. So if you work 11 hours a day average 30 days/mo that's about 330 hours so 2600/300= less than 8$/hr. What if you have 2 or 3 fast track instrument students? You may have no signoffs that month so now its 2100 and you make minimum wage. Or if the weather sucks in ISP or CHI or SAC or even MYF. ATP makes it like this so you get out fast and they can move more people through. I don't hate ATP or believe the philosophy is wrong, I just know it sucks to work there and my personal feeling is that being a CFI shouldn't be miserable just because it's "temporary". Too many people just want to move on and don't consider that being a CFI can be a good experience and not only a stepping stone. But I guess in aviation the hardship at first is a given, so don't expect to have much of a life for a while.

Website says only guaranteed for 6 months. An instructor at my school, a great instructor at that, was let go to make room for new hires. They only have a need for so many instructors, if they have a guy they HAVE to give a job because it is guaranteed and you are beyond the 6 month window, guess who gets a pink slip.

This is a a great post. I have friends who work/moved on from there and never enjoyed their time as a CFI. It is actually really sad to see/observe.

In short; your time as a CFi with them will be maxing out your credit cards, making friends, making enemies, and making you wonder why you chose such a terrible career.

Sorry to be negative.