American Flyers
 

Does anybody know about how much American Flyers Instructors are paid? Couldn't find anything on their website. Anybody do any training there either? What's it like there, etc.?

At KSMO this March, you started at $15/hour.

They adjust the rate as market conditions dictate, there are no guarantees. Different cities may have different scales. Last time I checked, they employed ALL line instructors as part-time to avoid providing benefits, even for those who worked essentially full-time.

With the looming furlough of thousands of CFI's from the regionals, they are probably already contemplating how much they can lower pay.

I started at $20/hr (as a CFII) last January in KFTW.

It appears that I will be attending the AF chicago 30 day CFI/II course in oct. Any tips anyone has before I go?

I did my commercial training at the dupage branch. They were the most disorganized outfit I have ever been at. They constantly changed my schedule around without notifying me when I was driving three hours each day to get there. They tried to get me to borrow way more money than what was quoted as the price and then added all kinds of extra fees to stack the bill up. When I was finished they would not return the left over money to the bank I borrowed from for several months and so I had more interest buildup that I had to pay. Also, I had the gibill and had to do my training 141 to get reimbursed and they knew this. When it came time for my checkride they told me I was training part 61 and had to do a part 61 checkride. I went through a huge mess with this that went all of the way up to the top boss there. My instructor was good but all things considered, I would not recommend AF to anyone, it was a horrible experience.

any one else feel the same?

$15 at Santa Monica?! How do you do that? I was a controller there for about a year and could barely pay the rent working 40 hours a week!

I didn't do that, nor would I recommend it to anyone. Particularly since they're paying $25 just up the street.

I would hope they pay well with how much they charge... It looked like a great school, but the prospect of getting the same ratings elsewhere for 15k cheaper was much to enticing for me. My current instructor gave a very clear answer as to why they charge so much- "They have to pay for those full-page color magazine ads somehow.."