Wages
Instructors are definately worth £20-£30 per flying hour and should be able to earn at least £25,000+ per annum.
Many flying schools have gone to wall in recent years and others simply survive. Certainly in the case of fixed-wing most flying clubs are member owned and subsidised or constituted as non-profit making with very few exceptions.
80-90% of income will come from pilot training with self hire being just a small part of the day to day activity. The training rate therefore is the real price from which the school/club earns it's income. The solo rates are discounted rates. The money available to pay instructors ibso facto is limited. Fifteen to twenty pounds an hour to the Instructor is a good cut. The problem is that the Instructor has to take the rub alongside the school owing to downtime for whatever the reason - and we know that in flying terms downtime is manifest due to all the obvious day to day realities including weather.
Even if there was a turnaround and we saw a doubling of business don't expect much of an increase in wages or fees, however deserved. It will mean that at long last the roof gets repaired or the ILS glideslope is fixed and the localiser become FM Immune. FM immunity like the prop shaft issue a few years ago can only be put down to yet another CAA faux pas.
Not for me to protect Engineers, however not many can afford to charge much more than £20 to £30 per hour. About the same as the one man band Car Mechanic working from an old shed in a back street.
The real answer is to see the flying club brought back into the fold of general aviation. JAA has completely sidetracked the role of the flying club from the advanced training scenario. Think back just a few years when FIC and later BCPL course were very closely alied to clubs. Even the IMC course is not recognised as a credit toward JAA professional licences. While many heavy jet pilots see Instructing at the club as recreation, the CAA say it isn't and counts instructing hours toward professional flying hours. The club has lost these contibutors as well.