For three decades, Proteus Flight School has trained pilots at Santa Monica Airport, outlasting competitors and weathering regulatory shifts that shuttered other operators at the field. Now, as the airport's scheduled 2028 closure approaches, the school's leadership says a generation of aviation education in Santa Monica hangs in the balance.
Founded in 1996 at 3025 Airport Avenue, Proteus is the oldest continuously operating flight school at the airport. It has since expanded to a primary location at 2501 Airport Avenue and a maintenance and instruction hangar at 3147 Donald Douglas Loop South. The school's database includes nearly 3,000 people who have trained there at some point in their aviation careers.
"This is our thirtieth year in operation, and we have outlasted many schools on the field," said Urooj Naveed, operations manager of Proteus Air Services, Inc. She attributed the school's endurance to "our unwavering focus on quality instruction and prioritization of safety."
Roughly half of the school's students transferred from other flight schools to complete their training at Proteus, Naveed said, and former students from the 1990s now enroll their own children at the school.
Proteus operates a fleet of Piper Cherokee aircraft and an FAA-approved Redbird TD2 simulator. While the school has changed ownership twice, founding members remain involved to preserve institutional knowledge, Naveed said. The school employs career instructors rather than pilots simply building flight hours toward airline jobs, she added, though instructors who do move on to commercial carriers often return to fly with former students.
The school's future, however, is clouded by the planned closure of Santa Monica Airport at the end of 2028. Naveed said the shutdown threatens to end a century of aviation education at the field and would make it difficult to retain the school's experienced staff if operations relocated.
"Proteus has always existed in the context of the history of aviation in Santa Monica," Naveed said. "It is not easy or possible to replicate such an environment in other places."
Naveed pointed to a series of city actions she said have already eroded operations at the airport. The runway was shortened by 1,500 feet in 2017, greatly reducing jet traffic. The city has also reduced the number of available tie-downs, or aircraft parking spots, and imposed what Naveed called "outrageous landing fees" administered by a private company called Vector. Funds, she said, have been directed toward repaving projects rather than improving the quality of flying at the airport.
Despite a public narrative suggesting widespread opposition to the airport, Naveed cited a January 2026 poll indicating that 67% of Santa Monica residents want the airport to remain open.
She said the school adheres strictly to noise-abatement procedures, including curfew hours and designated flight routes designed to minimize disruption to surrounding neighborhoods. The airport, she added, plays a role in emergency preparedness, serving as a potential alternative if Los Angeles International Airport were forced to close, or during fires and earthquakes.
The airport currently houses four flight schools, maintenance facilities, offices and flying clubs. It also hosts community programming, including weekly chess classes for homeschooled students held at Proteus and STEM classes at other schools on the field. Nearby amenities include soccer fields, Cloverfield Park, the Cloverfield restaurant, the Airport Art Center Studios and the Santa Monica Trapeze School, which is relocating across the street from Proteus.
Naveed questioned whether the city has the budget to convert the land into a park, noting that the site has been contaminated by fuel and chemicals over a century of operations. She also pointed out that existing parks in Santa Monica go underused and that the airport's presence caps nearby building heights, preserving the low-rise character of surrounding neighborhoods.
"We hope the community can understand the true motivations behind shutting down the airport have more to do with real estate developers' concerns than the actual community," Naveed said.
Revenue from leases on hangars, offices and studios at the airport would be lost if the field is converted, she said.
"We need pilots for the airlines, cargo, firefighting, military operations," Naveed said, "and we need good quality instruction for that."