Mr Spooner

As a Delta Connection Academy alumni I still keep in close contact with friends who work at the academy, some in management. The big academy bosses in Atlanta are going to be cleaning some house with the upper management at the Academy because they can not keep instructors to stay because of crappy pay and work rules. Instructors are over worked and students are lucky to get one event a day with their instructors.

Why does this matter to you, the prespective student? Well the new Cirrus SR20's go for $350 per hour with fuel and instructor and the less you get to fly per day the more time and money your course will cost. Also since they are losing instructors they are hiring students to instruct after receiving their CFI intial (this was never the case before, you had to have your CFII as well). The previously selective and difficult hiring process is so laxed now anyone can work there, and trust me there are many dopes instructing there who would never of been hired before.

Plus most of the CFI's there hate that place so much it is starting to show in their training.

Just a note if you are thinking about them.

cfii2007

No, I am not thinking about them!

SebastianDesoto

I got my CFI and CFII at DCA Sanford. There are some good people that went there, very smart and rigid flight training. But what you just discribed is why I could not continue to proceed with that program. I kinda saw it coming.

otterjumper

Thanks to all who have posted thoughts and experiences on the flight schools. After visiting DCA and ATP I am even more convinced that the FBO is the way to go for me.

If anyone is curious, ATP is getting ready to have a 'significant price increase' according to a phone call I received no more than two weeks ago. When I asked how much the gentleman would not/could not say, but I think it was a mixture of pressure to sign up 'before our rates go up' and potentially to help cover the note on the new fleet of Diamond Jets.

Flying at 5 tonight!

MobiusOne

I'm not quite sure how to take this, being that this will be my very first post ever on this board.

However, I can't help but wonder how your "upper management" buddies will feel about you taking information that they probably told you in good faith and then you reposting it in this fashion on a pilot forum board?

jdsavage

Can't say I didn't see this coming and that they don't deserve it. Back when I was serving my sentence there I had just wrapped Multi and was planning on taking a break to Vegas for 5 days. They wanted to stick me in one CFI class and I told them I would be back in time for the next one or let me start a day late. I forget the manager's name but he informed me that if I didn't do that class on that date they wanted me to, it would be very hard for me to get a job with them as a CFI. My response was, "As you guys told me when I came on with this place, I'm here to be an airline pilot not a CFI." "As far as I am concerned I am paying you $65,000, you will put me in the class I specify. If I don't get a job with this lousy place so be it!" "Now, are you going to stick me in the CFI of my choosing, or are you going to lose out on my money?" In the end they put me in the CFI class I wanted in, but I quit anyway after the ground school.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of @$$holes, I mean people.

Mr Spooner

You obviously do not know what these forums are about do you.

They are for passing on info from the more experienced "me" to the less experienced "you." If I can help someone trying to make a huge decision like where to go to flight school easier I will.

You have a lot to learn about aviation and how we pilots look out for eachother. You sound like a management type of guy who would watch your fellow pilots on the picket line as you walked by them to work.

jdsavage

Good faith nothing. Ever wonder why you don't hear about this in their propaganda? Or why this isn't talked about in public there? Management tries to keep all this a secret so others don't hear about how poorly they treat their customers. This is the stuff that people outside of the loop don't hear. This is about the crap they would have to put up with there and I am more than happy to inform them of what I went through there and suggest other places. If they treated me well, I would be doing to them what I do to my current employer and talk about how great it is.
If management can't take the pilots b!tching about the truth, then they should turn things around and make things better or find a new job.

MobiusOne

Well sir with all due respect if by sounding like a management guy means I do not take vague internet statements on a forum at face value, then I guess you would be right.

HSLD

Not fast.....as the co-founder of Airline Pilot Central I agree that these forums are for sharing info within aviation from the "haves" to the "have-nots". We've all had some help at some point along the way, and this forum is our attempt to return the goodwill we've received along the way.

That said we DO NOT advocate posting "insider information" that could damage any business, airline, or labor group if made public. We would also encourage discretion with respect to private conversations.

With respect to the thread topic, I agree that flight schools are going to have to sweeten the compensation package if they are to retain quality CFIs. Unfortunately, the added cost will be passed on to the student which will probably result in fewer student starts due to increasing costs.