Please CAA-Its time to stop hidden costs

[blueb0y79]

Attn CAA or relevant Governing bodies

I think everybody would agree that searching for cheap hours can be a total nightmare, especially when learning to fly. TRhat's why it's time to put a stop to all the hidden costs that flying schools/clubs advertise and show the potential customers the REAL prices. No more "prices exclude VAT" or "prices do not include instructor costs". Let's make the fares accessable to all and stop the cowboys from ripping us all off. Some of us wannabees have to work god damn hard in order to pay for maybe one or two lessons! So stop targeting the rich and give us peasants a chance to learn to fly or at least the chance to explore the TRUTH.

If you agree to this post please reply so that I can see if I am the only one who has this opinion.

Many thanks

[QNH 1013]

As far as I can see this has nothing to do with the CAA.
If you want the CAA to start taking on the work of Trading Standards Departments then the CAA's costs and therefore charges are going to rise.
If a price is quoted as "prices do not include vat" then I don't see that is a hidden charge. A hidden charge would be to avoid telling you that you have to pay for something that might not occur to you as a new student. Perhaps landing fees, or club membership fees.

[Gin Slinger]

Here's some outragous costs the CAA which definately does come within it's remit:

£718 for initial attempts at ATPL theory exams. This is nothing less than an abuse of it's position.

~£400 for initial class one medical - perhaps not as bad, but still pushing it.

£271 for issuing a JAR PPL(A), with IMC and Night Ratings - compare how much the FAA charges for similar services.

[GearUp CheerUp]

The difference id that in the US the FAA is funded from the public purse wheras the CAA must cover all of its costs in fees as it gets no funding from the government.

If you consider the case of exams, if you choose to sit these at a remote (from Aviation House) venue the CAA has to pay someone for the rental of the exam hall, pay for the invigilators, costs of marking etc etc.

The overheads on the Belgrano cant be cheap either.

But I do agree its a lot of money. Make sure you go and have luinch in their canteen one day and recoup a fraction of what you've paid in.

I think I paid the CAA the best part of 4 grand to get my CPL/IR with frozen ATPL.

[Dutchie]

I have been flying and training for many years and I feel that it is just like any other industry. You just have to pay attention and be a bit street wise, nothing specific to aviation I feel. The main cost that is usually not included and can add up, specially when training abroad, is cost of travel, housing and licence conversions etc.

It would be the same to complain about the Motorway police because welcom break is overcharging....

I do agree with Gin Slinger that some of the CAA costs are a bit over the top.. (understatement..) On the other hand I feel that the guys doing do the work in the licencing office at LGW do their best to help you. They are always on the receing end of our complaints while in 99% of the cases they are only executing orders. :o

[BravoOne]

Excellent, a Poll. But will our concerns actually get back to the source (CAA)? I for one am finding the planning extremely tricky when trying to estimate total costs for training and when I think "Waoooh...OK this is my final figure" some additional research then proves different and there is yet more costs to be included.

What about a course 'Financial and Course Planning for the JAR-FCL ATPL's'. I find most of my time recently has been spent paraniodly re-checking my totals and thinking "Have I left something out"? Instead I should be focusing my valuable time and effort into exam preparation and training!!!

Let's see something done...

[FlyingForFun]

I don't have it with me, so I might be wrong, but...

...the sales literature from Pilot Assist includes a complete breakdown of all of the costs involved in going from zero-ATPL, and I think this includes CAA charges such as exams and license issue.

I'm not suggesting that you do or don't use Pilot Assist, but ask them for their sales brochure, take a look at the back, and (if you decide not to use them) deduct all their charges and overheads, and you should come out with a realistic figure.

I haven't tried this myself, so I accept no responsibility if I'm wrong and there's loads of stuff missing from their breakdown!

(And no, this doesn't condone the CAA's charges - just trying to find a way around the fact that people are having problems budgeting due to the hidden nature of the charges.)

FFF
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[A and C]

What the hell has the price that a private company charges got to do with the CAA ?

If the CAA got involved with this the costs would be very large indeed and you and I would pay in the end.

This thread just shows the attitude of lack of personal responsabilty that people think that they should take for there lives today and I for one dont want to be flown in an airliner by a crew who think that all that happens to them is the fault of another party.

Get a life guys befor the nanny state gets you.

[FlyingForFun]

A and C,

I think you may have missed the point of my post. As you say, the price that Pilto Assist charge is completely irrelevant to this thread. However, several people have said that they found it hard to budget, given that there doesn't seem to be a definitive list of all of the CAA charges involved in their training. All I was saying was that I think I know of a source for finding out these charges - I believe they are listed in the back of Pilot Assist's sales brochure. This is completely separate to the amount which Pilot Assist charge for their services. Apologies for any confusion caused.

FFF
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[rolling circle]

given that there doesn't seem to be a definitive list of all of the CAA charges involved in their training
Of course there is a definitive list of CAA charges, it's in CAP393 and Here (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fcl_Scharges_prof_03.pdf)

Anything else is a charge by the school, not the CAA.

[Evo7]

The equivalent PPL charges are here (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fcl_Scharges_ppl_03.pdf).

[Send Clowns]

A & C

No-one is discussing the level of he charges of private companies, but the transparency of those charges as advertised. In the case of a school approved by the CAA to give training (as all commercial training organisations, FTOs, must be) a case can clearly be put that this is within the remit of the CAA. The cost would not be high, as all the companies go through extensive auditing anyway.

[A and C]

It,s not for the CAA to regulate the business practices of a private company there job is to see that the requirments of the ANO are met and as a goverment department publish a clear scale of charges.

Part of living in a free contry is that yoou have control of your life so how you spend your money is down to YOU.

The wise will use these pages to ask questions about aspects of aviation and will find out far more than a goverment department would tell them for fear of leagal action.

The business practices of a number of companys have been the subject of threads at one time or another and most of the comments are well reasond with a balance of both pleased and not so pleased customers and a trend will develope from that the astute will base further reserch as to were to go for training.

Most companys do not make comment on these pages ,letting the customers comments reflect on there business , one company has made threats of leagal action to pprune and cannot be mentioned on these pages , I wonder what conclusions the readership drew about the business practices at that company ?.

CAA control private businesses ? .....NO the best protection from being ripped of is right here on pprune.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I have to agree with A and C on this one.

Part of becoming a Professional pilot is taking upon yourself the task of understanding regualtory documents. If you can't be bothered to find the (now online for heavens sake!) CAP pertaining to CAA charges then perhaps you don't want to be a Professional pilot quite as much as if often required...

An as historical aside it was Churchill who decreed that the new fangled Air Ministry must be self funding from charges made against air companies and their employees. Much unlike it Naval counterpart... Don't blame the CAA for having to charge you at a commercial rate whilst the FAA are a Government funded agency. Just another example of anti-competitive US aviation policy! ;)

The CAA are much much more customer focussed than they were even five years ago. I know you may find that hard but it is true. I hated writing big cheques to them just as much as you - but - you must blame Churchill for that and not the CAA staff.

Just make sure you stuff your face in the canteen should you visit :o !!!

WWW

[FFP]

Why, is the canteen free or something ?!?!

[cumulus]

Not free, but heavily subsidised, and the food is great.

It is also a good place to sit quietly and listen to the gossip.
Some of the bods from the enforcement side are marvellously indiscreet.....:E

[RVR800]

The real problem as far as the CAA is concerned is the publication of the statistics that represent the worthfulness of a frozen ATPL as far as employment is concerened.

How many people sit/pass ATPLs
How many people sit/pass CPL
How many people sit/pass IR
How many people sit/pass MCC
How many people sit/pass Multi-Crew Type rating


What percentage of CPL/IRs have current muti-crew type ratings
and Class I medicals?

This is the REAL scandal - the figures if revealed would affect CAA and flight school revenue big time if known........................

[Alex Whittingham]

They do publish most of these stats. I've tried to make sense of them and can't.

[RVR800]

Alex,

Please could you paste the hyperlink for that data?

Thanks

RVR800

[Alex Whittingham]

Flight Crew Licensing Statistics (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?categoryid=175&pagetype=68&groupid=559)

[AlexL]

The job market is outisde of anyones remit - you can't blame the CAA or anyone else if theres no jobs.
However it would be very useful to see the combined stats for a the whole CPL/IR training process.
i.e x1 number of people sat the ATPL exams, of these, x2 passed, of these x3 got awarded a CPL of these x4 got awarded an IR (of which y passed first time) of these x5 are MCC and type rated.
The fact that my reading of the CAA stats seems to indicate that in 2002 / 3 and 4 about 800 odd CPLS were issued each year - of which 100-130 odd had IR's.

now 100 odd CPL / IR's each year seems at odds to the hundreds (thousands?) of people taking the exams? or am I reading this stuff wrong?

[High Wing Drifter]

The discussion about the strange IR stats was raised a few months ago too. Like Alex nobody could understand them :confused:

[tunalic2]

HWD

thats how i read it too, assuming we have read the stats correctly

not very many is it?

T2

oops I meant AlexL not HWD

[RVR800]

2003/4
16 PPLs got an Instrument Rating .... Awesome!
All they need now is to hammer that down to zero in 2004/5
and they will have abolished that type of aviation....

[vivadavinci]

Those stats from the campaign are a fantastic bit of analysis!

I may be wrong, and usually am, but as far as I can see 30% of the uk's commercial helicopterists got their licence in 03-04. I suspect that may not be true.

Going back to the orignal point of the thread, flying is expensive, we know that. Presentation of prices is purely a marketing exercise by the school concerned. If you don't like how the school presents the information, draw your own conclusions and take your cash elsewhere.

However, having been at the coalface of a number of helicopter FTO's and registered facilities, I can assure you nobody's getting rich! It really is being for love not money.

That said, has anybody noticed that Alex's E-type appears to be getting shinier and shinier?(';)
(Only joking Alex - a fair price for an excellent product in my view!)

Best of luck with it folks.

Leonardo.

[High Wing Drifter]

Alex's E-type appears to be getting shinier and shinier?
An E-type? Why the penance? ;)

[Alex Whittingham]

Well, I used to have a (blush) Stag but I rolled it into a ditch on Romney Marsh back in 1992. I bought the E-type with the insurance money from a bloke in Catford. I've spent so much restoring it over the last 13 years I couldn't bear to be parted from it, unless you're putting in an offer?

[Capt Pit Bull]

Moving back to the original topic, i.e. hidden costs in advertised rates.

I used to work in the GA flying training world, (actually, for the same company as Alex for a while). Like many small companies, most of us had an element of 'jack of all trades' about our duties, and so I often found myself helping out a bit with sales.

And here is the harsh reality - people are extremely influenced by the visible price tag.

The company I worked for eventually went bust, though I had moved on to the airlines by then, and many people have cast aspersions regarding the ethics of the owners. Thats ancient history now, so no point in raking it over, but what I will say is this.

We used to quote an hourly rate for airborne time, inclusive of VAT and all landing fees. The problem is, this comes out to be quite a large number. Its a while back now (15 years) so I can't claim these figures are accurate, but it was something like UKP 135 for an hour in a PA-28.

Meanwhile the main competitors were quoting something like maybe UKP 90 per hour for commercial GFT training.

Surprise surprise, we really struggled to sell our courses. In spite of the fact that our competitors where charging blocks times (on GFT profiles taxy time, with all the dotting of I's and crossing of T's being quite significant), were not including VAT, and not including landing fees.

So lets look at a typical GFT profile - lets say 2 hours airborne (including a few circuits) plus 25 mins on the ground (15 for taxy/checks etc, 5 to taxy in, and perhaps an average of 5 minutes at the holding point).

Us: 2x135 = UKP 270 for the sortie, all up.

Competitor: 2.42x90 = UKP 218
plus VAT (was it 17.5 % then?, hmm, I can't remember) = UKP 38
plus perhaps 3 x UKP 5 landing fee = UKP 15
grand total for sortie = approx UKP 270.

In otherwords, the real cost of our training was pretty similar to the competitiors.

However, put this in the context of self improvers used to paying perhaps UKP 65 for an hours PPL instruction. or maybe UKP 20 to hire the same aircraft in the USA.

Not surprisingly, people would wear the idea that commercial traing might cost them a bit more money, but well over a hundred pounds per hour?

Take a first approximation of costings. OK, I want to do my BCPL which requires 15 hours training.

15x135 = 2025

versus

15x90 = 1350

Is it any surprise many people were not even bothering to get in touch? We did a lot of market research and eventually the penny dropped that we had a substantial reputation as being extremely expensive. As you can see, that was not justified. What we should have had, (in this area at least!) was a rock solid reputation for honest pricing, instead it was costing us dear.

Reluctantly, the decision was made that the students deserved to be able to compare like for like in their costings, so we started quoting VATless block rates instead, on the basis that if someone called us, we would be able to explain the various additional charges, but if they were never calling us we would never be able to compete.

And of course, the same thing continues in all areas of commerce. You've only got to look at airline ticket prices, and reputations for selling 'cheap' versus 'over priced' air travel.

The bottom line is that this is consumer driven. Collectively, we only have ourselves to blame.

CPB

[High Wing Drifter]

At risk of asking the bleeding obvious, why don't FTOs advertise both prices next to each other?

[Capt Pit Bull]

Well, there is lots of different combinations, with or without VAT, airborne or block, with or without landing fees, with or without instructor, different aircraft types etc. So a full listing of all possible charges, and enough info about course contents and timing to allow someone to make a sensible budget, would probably take several pages to advertise.

Essentially, the point of an advert is to get someone to contact you. At which point:

- a reputable FTO will advise you in detail about all the variables - not just costs but aircraft, instructor and examiner availability, local accommodation, etc to help you come up with a realistic timescale and budget for the course in toto.

- its down to the customer to talk to several FTOs to get a sensible comparison.


CPB

[effortless]

I had a bloody good meal last night in an expensive restaurant. Outside there was a printed menu which told me pretty well what everything sosts including VAT. It stated that there was a 10% service charge added. I believe that this is a legal requirement throughout the EU. I can't see any problem with posting a menu on the door of the flying club.