feedback
Here is my feedback :
ATPL :
Probably the most standard part of the training. After all, you only need a classroom and an instructor. Nothing special.
There is an obvious large range of competency among the theory instructors. Some are efficient and will reply to all your questions. Others don't even know what they teach. But to be honest, the school reacted accordingly to the feedbacks and change of instructor if necessary.
Most of the work is done at home anyway, when you study on the atpl database for the CAA exams.
Now let's get straight to the main point, the flights: Run away from that school.
Run.
Away.
They have enrolled for those last 2 years too many students they are not able to train. Every 2 month comes a new class of students. The school has now around 240 guys to train.
Many of them are on « stand-by » because the school doesn't have enough instructors and planes to train the students. So many of them are waiting now at home.
There is currently a 5 months delay between the VFR phase, and the IFR phase.
And you will understand very soon why, if you read below.
The Fleet :
· 6x Tecnam P2002 currently (for VFR – 1st part)
· 4x Cessna 172 (for IFR – 2nd part)
· 1x Tecnam 2006 (for Multi-engine training, last part)
That fleet is clearly undersized for that school. Do the maths:
240 students. 11 planes.
Even small schools that nobody knows have more planes.
6 P2002 currently in Spain. Today only 2 are available.
Among the 4 C172, 2 are permanently on maintenance (1 is even new, but has already a Garmin fault. It's been on maintenance for weeks...).
Today there 2 C172 out of 4 are available... 2 C172 for the whole school...
Let’s compare with another big school:
4x C172 ==> FTE Jerez has 20 IFR aircrafts.
1x Tecnam 2006 (Multi-engine) ==> FTE Jerez has 6 Multi-Engine aircrafts –
Even Air Bartolini in Poland & F-Air in Czechia (2 other “tecnam eastern Europe schools”) own 2 P2006, and they are way smaller.
The school is very very greedy on investing in new airplanes.
Consequently: much much much waiting before you fly. And when you start flying, there will be a gap of 1 week, 10 days before the next flight.
Some students really rub elbows to get the slot instead of you. Some guys literally harassed the administration and the dispatcher to get the simulator/plane slots. It’s just clientelism, no planning. Such an attitude should be banned in a pilot school. That is not a quality we want to experience in a cockpit? Pushing the others under the train, to save his ass?
Instructors:
VFR instructors attribution is a lottery. You can get a serious one, or a young one who cares only about building up his hours and chat with his friends on his phone during flights. They all are just fresh out of their CPL.
Those poor FI are so low paid, that they resign and run away to see a greener grass somewhere else. They treat their FI like they treat their students: with no respect.
FNPT2 (IFR simulator):
Only one for the whole school.
Yes. You read correctly.
Only one old FNPT2 for all the students starting IFR.
Old, crappy. It sometimes reboots during an IFR session for no reason.
I told you. Greedy school.
Organisation :
The WORST point of BAA.
It's a total mess. Nobody knows what they do. They got no information. They don't communicate. They don't plan. They don't reply to serious emails, especially if it's an uncomfortable topic.
They created an email address connecting the students straight to the administration: don't bother, they choose to ignore if the topic is embarrassing.
There was absolutely no planning about the flights in Lithuania. You just go see the dispatcher, who barely knows about the next day. Come back at the end of the day to get some info for tomorrow.
The administration even told us: « you have to come directly to the briefing room to get information day by day »
Is it so hard to update a planning online of the upcoming flights?
They have apparently changed that in Spain, now there is a daily PDF about the flights for the day after.
But during 1 year, we got a message on whatsapp, sometimes in the evening at 10pm, that tomorrow morning at 6am you gotta be at the airport.
After the theory, they came to us with a very amateur excel file, about the upcoming months of our training.
No math about the number of FI & planes. They, as always, promised us that everything is gonna be okay, smooth and easy.
Bingo! Everything went wrong: lack of planes, lack of instructors, no back-up plans.
The last dirty trick they did to students: promising them to fly the multi on the 5th of November, so those guys went to Spain (paying transportation, finding an accommodation, etc at their own expenses of course)... When they arrived, they were said they would finally start the 8th. Then the 13th. Today is the 28th of November and they are still waiting.
Most of them came back home. 2 weeks in Spain for...nothing €€€
That’s a total of 2 months waiting for them.
Same story for the VFR students now, they arrived in Spain too early: flat rent, food, waiting… usual mess
They don’t even realize that students have no money.
The situation:
The current students at BAA are all delayed because of the school.
Students complain to the administration, but it’s useless. There’s not enough plane, and they don’t want to buy new ones. Period.
The school doesn't plan to buy new aircrafts, neither hire new instructors. So that mess will keep going on for 2019. Sorry about that.
They can put a lot of pressure on students to pay, but the global philosophy is clear: once you pay, they don't care about you. It’s all about marketing.
My opinion:
With that money, you can get a much better school. Especially now, the market is thriving, go for a quick modular course, save money and apply to airlines as soon as possible.
Do the maths. Minimum 9 months of living expenses, waiting to fly, etc. And I don’t even talk about the lack of organisation and respect to their students which will drive you crazy.
Their 24 months ATPL is 72,000€, compared to 40,000€ in a 15 months modular course.
Make the right choice.
Those « cadet » programs at BAA don't mean anything: you can get a job at each of them without being a cadet :
Smallplanet is falling apart.
Smartlynx deal is a huge scam. Their cadets had been betrayed by the airline during the training.
Wizzair is accessible from any random school, especially if you come from an Eastern Europe country. Wizzair also changed the conditions of employment during the training of their cadets…
Their marketing and communication is, in contrast, very professional: they make road shows all over Europe; they organize events for nice pictures of students with stripes on the shoulder watching airplanes, they are very active on all social networks...and ban any uncomfortable comments.
You see that picture on their main page of a blond nice girl and a male student, on their facebook events picture?
The girl is actually an administrative employee who put stripes, a tie and sunglasses for the photo-session. The guy was an atpl student with 0 flying hours. It's legal, sure. But it’s a metaphor of lies that school is expert in.
And I don't even talk about those YouTube videos; the actors showing an emergency procedure in an A320 don't even have their PPL or any commercial licence.
There are plenty of serious and competent schools out there. Have a look on German, Swedish, Spanish, French, Polish, Czech, Irish schools.
For 40,000€-60,000€ you can get a very serious training in a reasonable time, and being respected.
BAA is a very greedy and incompetent school.
I'm sorry the current students of that school, but there is no clear positive sign of evolution.