21 April 2023
Bristol Ground School (BGS) and Wings Alliance, a support community for modular pilots, have offered to complete groundschool training for students of Tayside Aviation.
Tayside Aviation has just gone into administration leaving some students stranded part-way through courses.
Alex Whittingham, chairman of Wings Alliance and founder of BGS, said, “It is shocking. One poor chap posted on Facebook looking to find other people starting with him on a ground school course at Tayside in May only to find the company had gone into receivership. He had paid £5,650 in advance.”
Bristol Groundschool is offering to complete the ATPL theory training for any Tayside students free-of-charge, leaving them only UK CAA exam fees to pay.
For Tayside customers part-way through flying courses, Alex said, “We will not be able to recover any flying course fees paid to Tayside in advance, but the Wings Alliance will help Tayside pilots find new flight schools and can also, at the customer’s option, monitor the progress of their flight training and make sure that training records etc. are properly kept”.
Wings Alliance registration and services are free of charge. Pilots can register at www.wingsalliance.eu
Alex Whittingham and Wings Alliance both warn against the practice of paying large amounts to flight schools up front.
“Some flight schools will take the best part of £100,000 off you before you have even seen an aircraft,” said Alex.
“This is totally unnecessary. First, the price is wrong. You can complete your licence on the modular route for just over half that.
“Second, you should not need to keep more than a few thousand pounds in credit. The risk of a flight school going bust is real. If it happened to an integrated flight school no-one could help you, you would have lost everything.”
For any affected students please email [email protected] and one of the Wings Alliance Training Advisors will be in contact with you.
Bristol Groundschool and the Wings Alliance are exhibiting at Pilot Careers Live on Saturday, 22 April 2023 at the Sofitel London Heathrow Terminal 5.
“Please visit our stand to discuss your particular circumstances and we will do what we can to help,” added Alex.
