Originally Posted by
Horatio Leafblower
Thanks George,
Great looking graph.
I am curious about your experience level and how long you have been in the industry because to be honest, every flying school owner I know has seen a massive drop off in flight training.
Can I suggest that:
1/. We have seen a huge drop in the number of owner/operator schools in regional Australia
2/. *some* of that drop-off has been balanced by the increase in business at *some* larger schools offering VET-FEE HELP
3/. *some* of that drop-off has been balanced by increased foreign-owned schools; and
4/. BITRE numbers are rubbish.
Regarding my experience I did most of my flying in the 1980s and 1990s, at Moorabbin, Cessnock, Parafield, Tullamarine and a few other places. I left the aviation training industry around 2000 until last year and I am picking up the pieces again.
Last year I went back to do some refresher training with my old flying school at Moorabbin. In the 1980s the flying school was busy on the weekends and quiet during the week, with most of the fleet parked on the tarmac on weekdays enjoying the sunshine and rain (as you can get in Melbourne). Anyway when I was there last year there was continual activity with both local and overseas students. The ground school was full with commercial and ATPL students and it was like that 7 days/week. If you wanted to do some circuits you had to book your slot with ATC an hour in advance, whereas back in the 80s and 90s your student turned up and you jumped into the aeroplane and did some touch and goes, very rarely was the circuit full like it was last year. So yes things are different and it wouldn't surprise me if all the activity is focussed around the bigger schools and larger centres now (with the exception of Bankstown, possibly because Sydney is too expensive and so the operators have moved out to satellite airports).
Regarding your 5 points I think there is probably some truth in all of those points. I don't know if it is possible to get better stats, so we make do with what we can get.
Regarding the whimsical rules of CASA, I am not arguing with Dick about CASA. He is probably correct that the CASA culture needs an overhaul, but the half-life of organisational cultures is about 15 years or more. Just look at how long it took airlines to take-up CRM as a serious concern. But if we are going to wait for GA to collapse under the weight of CASA rules the graph doesn't seem to suggest that. It looks to me like there is a steady (or possibly slowly declining) rate of local flying students, and superimposed on that is a component of overseas students. In the 1980s we had a lot of trainees from European airlines and some Asian. Perhaps now it is mostly Asian and some European, don't know. If anyone knows of a good data source where we can pick that out please let me know.