The thing about new scams is you have to experience them to educate people about them or know it firsthand from someone you know to not fall into the trap. Unfortunately, I have experienced a few scams and I also know friends who have gone through some horrible events and lost their money.
Let’s go through how the flight school scams their enrolled and potential students and how can you spot them and avoid them to save your hard-earned money.
Table of Contents
Is the flight school financially stable?
The main purpose of the foundation of a building is to hold the structure above it and keep it upright. … A good and strong foundation keeps the building standing while the forces of nature wreak havoc. Well-built foundations keep the occupants of the building safe during calamities such as earthquakes, floods, strong winds, etc.
A building foundation actually performs a number of functions. The three most important are to bear the load of the building, anchor it against natural forces such as earthquakes, and isolate it from ground moisture.
The foundation is the financial stability, the load is the expense to run the flight school and natural forces are unforeseen circumstances. Moisture is the debt.
“Strong financial stability is the foundation of a good flight school”
Unfortunately, the flight school I was in was near bankruptcy. I was worried that the school might go bust before I finish my course. It was a race against time. They kept bringing in new students and used that money to run the school. So only students in the last stages of their course were able to complete it and fortunately I was one of them. The school went bust after I finished my CPL.
Having sufficient funds in the flight school’s account will allow them to:
- Good flight instructors;
- Have more aircraft in their fleet;
- Plenty of good aircraft technicians and mechanics;
- Well maintained aircraft.
Similarly, if a flight school is low in the budget, they will try to scam you in several ways and delay your flight training.
Solution: Talk to the staff, the students, and if possible, talk to the owner of the flight school to have an idea about them.
Do they Overtrain students on the ground
Although a good pilot is always learning, overtraining student pilots on the ground is not necessary.
Good flight schools will provide you with organized ground classes which will teach you all of the essential lessons for your level of flying training.
“Too much of anything is bad”
Overtraining students on the ground can cost you more money. Because the longer a flight school keeps you in ground classes, the more you’ll have to pay.
They may say that your instructor wants you to prepare more for the flight or say you need to study more and make you take more 1 V 1 ground with instructors. Which costs up to 55$ per hour.
Nonetheless, a good flight school will allow you to observe some other batch’s ground classes in order to review your lessons.
So a good flight school will never ask you to pay extra for overtraining. A good flight school will have friendly instructors who will gladly assist you and try to share their knowledge based on their own experiences without charging you.
Does the flight school emphasize on accelerated flight training?
Oh boy! this is a big one.
Flight school: Pay us the whole tuition fees and we will put you in our accelerated flight training program. You will be given preference over everyone and finish your course within 7-8 months.
Ideal You: I’ma accelerate away from you.
Another way a flight school will try to scam you is by saying that they can enrol you for a quickened flight training if you pay them for the whole package.
The flight school I was in also did this. They entrapped students by promising them that they will complete the course within 7 months if they pay all the money at once.
They did pay the money at once. Fast forward 1.5 years they were still in the flight school trying to complete their CPL school. Eventually, they left and joined some other flight school where they finished the rest of their course within 2 months.
Why didn’t they leave earlier? Let’s find out in the next point.
Will you get your money back if you decide to quit?
You should be able to terminate your training at any time if you so desire. A good flight school will charge a cancellation fee and promptly refund your money.
Scammy flight schools, on the other hand, force you to sign a contract stating that you cannot get your money back once you have paid them.
To answer the previous question, this is the reason why they didn’t leave them early and when they left, the school owed them more than USD 20,000
Read all the contracts and policies properly.
Are they selling books and supplies with a higher price tag than usual.
Selling books and supplies for pilots is a business for flight schools.
They will try to sell extra books and supplies to you at a price more than its actual value.
Here’s what you don’t need, 3 expensive Jeppesen bag’s (Private, Instrument, and Commercial )
Each costs about 23,000 – 28,000 INR. Ask them to not include it in your package. So only choose what you need and order it online instead of buying them from your flight school’s pilot shop.
You can get the books from Amazon or just study online using Gleim or Sheppard Air
You don’t have to buy books more than you need right now.
Buy used books if you can because Aviation books are expensive.
Please feel free to share your experience and comment below on any other frauds that you have figured out.
Don’t know what to ask your flight school? Check out Top 5 questions to ask your flight school before enrolling.
I will not name that academy based in delhi..
I went there for ground management course and i asked about the fee and everything their and then after 3-4hrs there people started calling me convencing for the enrollment. At 1st she charged me 1.5lacks we denied to pay so she offered us 1lack after (discount offer as per her)
And in lumsum she offered 94k we was confused camed back home then they started calling me and told me your very good candidate your looks this and that and still we talked about fee and after lots of calls one day she called us again she offered us course of 1.5k at 1st in just 60k 😅
Somehow We agreed.! She told us it will be a class of 5hrs and they will give uniform and hardbooks but after enrolling they gived only 2hrs of class no uniform and E-books
I was disappointed. I enrolled for ground management but they was teaching me for airhostess and their was only one instructor. I asked them about the course and she told me to pay exrta 20k for the ground management or she cnt degrade my course. I decided to quite and asked for cash back atlest of 30-50% she denied said that is not refundable thats our policy.! I was help less stressed i quit and i camed back to punjab from delhi and all my 60k was gone 🙂
I am so sorry for your experience and your lost time, money, and effort. And thank you for sharing it with us Priyanka this will definitely help others. Don’t be discouraged after this incident, I am sure you’re much aware now and can easily identify big red flags. I hope you pursue what you intend to do.