Two Ways To Pay For The Airline Pilot Course

The in-house plan, because it carries no interest at all — you pay the course price and nothing on top of it. The trade-off is that it is paid across your training rather than across years, so the monthly amount is larger. Stratus can spread the cost over a term of up to 15 years, which lowers the monthly payment and adds interest over the life of the loan. How much interest depends entirely on the rate Stratus offers you, and only Stratus can tell you that.

No. It is a payment arrangement with LA Flight School for training services. You put $2,500 down to reserve your place and the balance is scheduled in monthly instalments across your training. There is no credit check, no approval process, no interest, and no fees or administrative costs. You are not borrowing money and there is no lender involved.

On the in-house plan, $2,500 reserves your place and the rest is scheduled as you fly. Through Stratus, $0 down is possible, since they can finance up to 100% of the training. What you actually put down on the Stratus route depends on the offer they make you.

Applying does not. Stratus uses a soft credit pull to assess the application, and a soft pull does not affect your score. A hard inquiry is made only if the loan is approved and you decide to proceed.

Not always, and not never — the application decides it. A co-borrower may be required for you to qualify, and adding one can improve the terms Stratus offers even when it is not required. That determination is made by Stratus from your application. We cannot make it for them, and nobody should tell you the answer before you have applied.

We do not publish a rate, because we do not set one. Stratus sets your rate from your application and it varies by applicant. Anyone quoting a firm flight-training rate before you have applied is guessing. The estimator on this page uses a placeholder rate you can move to see how the monthly figure behaves; it is not a quote and not an offer of credit.

Stratus offers deferment options during training. Whether you qualify, and what the deferment looks like, is set by Stratus in your loan agreement, so raise it directly with them during the application. On the in-house plan the question works differently: payments are matched to your training pace by design.

Conditional approval typically comes back within one business day. Funding typically takes two to three weeks from there, and the timing depends mostly on how quickly you return the documents they ask for.

No. Stratus allows prepayment without penalty. That matters more in this field than in most, because pilots often begin earning from flying sooner than they expected and want to clear the balance ahead of schedule.

You need to be 18 or over, a US citizen or lifetime permanent resident, and hold a US bank account. Meeting those requirements makes you eligible to apply. It does not mean approval, which is Stratus's decision based on your full application.

No. The Airline Pilot Course is $84,000 until 30 September 2026 and $89,000 after that, whichever way you pay for it. There is no financing surcharge and no cash discount. What changes between the two routes is the schedule, the term, and whether interest applies.

By instructing. The course finishes with the certificates and ratings that let you be paid to fly and to teach, and graduates in this field generally build the remaining hours working as flight instructors. Instructor pay is hourly — the national average was $28.58 an hour on Indeed in July 2026 — and it is paid for hours flown and taught rather than a 40-hour week. It is a working stage of the pathway rather than a waiting one.