Flight Schedule Pro, a widely utilized platform for flight training operations, has entered into a partnership with educational financing firm Sallie Mae to provide options for students pursuing pilot certification.
The collaboration aims to integrate student loan management directly into the flight training process, the company said.
This exclusive agreement will allow approved flight schools across all 50 states to offer private student loans to qualified students through Sallie Mae. Students will be able to use Flight Schedule Pro for scheduling, training, and billing, while also tracking their Sallie Mae private student loan disbursements as they progress through their training programs.
More Transparency
The partnership is designed to offer a more transparent and structured financial pathway for aspiring pilots, akin to traditional higher education financing, according to the Flight Schedule Pro. The aim is also to provide flight schools and instructors with enhanced analytics to improve coaching, operational efficiency, and graduation rates.
“So when we set out to solve this problem, it’s not only giving the lenders access to the state of [training], giving the flight schools access to it, and the students at the end of the day,” Nick Wegner, CEO of Flight Schedule Pro, told FLYING. “So it’s really creating that transparency across all the different parties, which I think is going to be really beneficial for everybody at the end of the day.”
In a news release, Patrick Freeman, senior vice president and general manager of private student lending and deposits at Sallie Mae, also commented on the partnership.
“This collaboration brings responsible, career-focused lending and new levels of transparency to flight training at a critical moment for the industry,” Freeman said.
Lack of Capital
According to the company, aspiring pilots have often encountered financial challenges and a lack of clarity regarding the use of funds during their training. This new model seeks to address these issues by providing a more predictable and accountable system, Wegner noted.
“What we found in the marketplace was that the people who lend the money to the students and the schools didn’t have visibility,” Wegner said. “They didn’t have any access to the data to make, what I would say, educated loans. And so you saw the repercussions of this…almost a year ago now, with Meritize exiting the space.”
Meritize provided student financing for “skill-based” education.
“When they exited, a lot of capital exited at the same time,” Wegner said. “So it limited the amount of capital available for students to train, which not only negatively impacts our customers in flight schools, but more importantly the students who want to fly and do that as their dream.”
Wegner said he saw an opportunity to use Flight Schedule Pro’s data to “help connect the lenders and banks to the flight schools in a way that’ll allow these lenders to feel more confident in who they’re lending to.”
Flight Schedule Pro reports that its platform, which tracks student progress at a large scale, saw over 70 new schools join in the first quarter of 2025. The company states that the new integration and student progress dashboards were developed and tested with input from Part 141 flight schools.
The program is currently being rolled out in stages, with early adopter schools already implementing the system. Flight schools interested in the program are encouraged to express their interest to secure a place in the ongoing rollout.
Flight Schedule Pro is utilized by over 1,400 flight schools and academies globally, supporting more than 60,000 student pilots and 16,000 instructors annually. The platform manages scheduling, progress tracking, and operations for over 12,000 aircraft.
LogTen Pilot Logbook, also part of the Flight Schedule Pro ecosystem, is a digital logbook used by over 300,000 pilots.
