Three sourced cost directories · Updated August 20, 2026
Find your flight school, academy or college
Three ways to train, in one place. A local flight school, a full-time accelerated academy, or an aviation degree that lowers your airline hour requirement. Every figure is sourced, and we are not affiliated with the schools.
Flight schools
Local, standalone schools with their own published rates, and a PilotBound estimate for every one that publishes enough to build it.
1169 schools· 50 states· from $7K Private
Browse by state Full-time · Fixed priceAccelerated academies
Full-time, integrated career programs sold at a fixed price, zero to the certificates fast. The published sticker on a map you can browse by state.
89 academies· 42 states· from $1.1K
Browse by state Degree · R-ATP 1,000 hrsCollege & university programs
Aviation degree programs, the only path that lowers the airline hour minimum from 1,500 to as few as 1,000. All-in cost on a map you can browse by state.
47 programs· 28 states· all sourced
Browse by stateFlight-school figures are PilotBound estimates built on each school's published rates; college figures are each school's published tuition and fees, summed; academy figures are each academy's own published fixed price. None is the school's quote. PilotBound is not affiliated with the schools, and a school can correct or remove its listing anytime. Flight-school, academy and college policies.
Weighing the paths against each other? Compare Part 61, 141, an academy, and a degree side by side.
Want the market-wide numbers? Read the PilotBound Flight Training Cost Report for the median rates across every school here.
Flight school, academy, or college?
- What is the difference between a flight school, a flight academy, and an aviation college?
- A flight school is local and hourly: you pay as you fly, at your own pace, under Part 61 or Part 141. An accelerated academy is full-time and integrated, sold as a fixed-price package from zero to the commercial certificate and instructor ratings. An aviation college wraps the same flight training in a degree, the only path that lowers the airline's 1,500-hour minimum, to 1,000 hours with a bachelor's or 1,250 with an associate's under 14 CFR 61.160.
- Which training path gets you to an airline seat soonest?
- It depends on where the hours come from. An academy compresses training to the certificates fastest but leaves the full 1,500-hour minimum. A degree takes two or four years but lowers the minimum to 1,250 or 1,000 hours. A local school moves at whatever pace you fly. Adding the instructing years it takes to build the remaining hours is what makes the paths converge more than the brochures suggest.
- Where do these numbers come from?
- Every figure starts on the school's own published pages. Flight-school listings show published hourly rates with source and date next to a PilotBound estimate; academy listings show the academy's published fixed price; college listings sum published tuition, room and board, and flight fees. The counts, 1169 flight schools, 89 academies, and 47 degree programs at the last check, are computed from the data at build, and nothing is estimated where a school publishes nothing.