In a Dec. 7 press release, ATP Flight School announced it has placed an order for an additional 40 Textron Aviation Cessna Skyhawk single-engine piston aircraft, with delivery scheduled to begin in 2026.
According to the Florida-based pilot training program, the latest agreement marks ATP’s fourth fleet purchase amounting to a total of 135 Cessna Skyhawks for its Airline Career Pilot Program in just over a year. The purchase will add to ATP’s current fleet of 225 Skyhawks in some 85 training centers nationwide.
Michael Arnold, vice president of marketing at ATP Flight School, highlighted the ambitious expansion plan. “Over the next three years, ATP will be expanding its Cessna fleet by 60% and delivering over 40 new state-of-art planes to ATP students each year through 2026.”
Recently, ATP Jets, one of the largest providers of airline pilot training within ATP Flight School’s portfolio in Dallas, made news as the program graduated its 20,000th student. This comes as airlines are on pace to hire a record number of pilots in 2023.
Unless they got a super deal, as it stands, almost 500K for a new 172 × 40 = 20 million dollars. A lot of capital to be tied up.
Probably why I am flying 30 and 40 year old copies.