2025 Year In Review

It is with pride and gratitude that I share that 2025 was LIFT Academy’s highest performing year to date. We delivered strong outcomes, strengthened the foundation of the program, and positioned ourselves well to ensure that 2026 is even more productive and successful. In 2025, LIFT graduated 177 pilots, flew over 97,500 total flight hours, and saw 88 LIFT graduates onboarded as Republic Airways First Officers. Those numbers reflect our disciplined training environment, built to produce professional, airline-ready pilots who carry a safety-first mindset and consistent standards into every phase of their careers.

LIFT’s mission is not just helping students earn certificates and ratings to support their career aspirations, but to build pilots who think and operate like professionals—with strong aeronautical decision-making, professionalism, and the ability to perform under real-world expectations. That standard takes a full team. Our instructors continue to set a high bar for training quality and professionalism, and our maintenance, scheduling, and student support teams enable our complex operation to run reliably and safely day after day. Across the organization, 2025 was marked by a continued focus on standardization, operational execution, and improving the overall student experience so students can stay focused on steady progress.

Another significant milestone in 2025 was earning accreditation through the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). Accreditation is an external validation of quality, consistency, and accountability, and it reinforces what we have worked hard to build at LIFT: a serious, outcomes-driven training organization with robust standards. We also continued investing in modern training methods and tools that improve learning efficiency and consistency, including simulation and immersive training approaches that help students learn and perfect procedures, flows, and cockpit discipline through high-quality repetition. The goal is straightforward: better preparation, better consistency, and better performance when it matters most.

Our relationship with Republic Airways remains a core advantage for LIFT students, and 2025 continued to demonstrate the strength of that pathway. Seeing 88 graduates step into First Officer roles is a reminder of why we hold the bar high from day one. At the same time, we continued to strengthen the network of partner opportunities around our program, building an environment where students can develop professionally and stay focused on the long-term goal of becoming safe, capable airline pilots.

In September, we also marked seven years since LIFT first opened in Indianapolis, and the growth since 2018 has been significant. From campus expansion to program maturation, the trajectory has been driven by the same idea that guides us today: train like a professional and carry those lessons forward for an entire career. I’m grateful to our students, families, instructors, staff, and partners for making 2025 a defining year. We head into 2026 with momentum, clarity, and the infrastructure to do even more.

Regards,