Lets face it. Flying is too expensive in the U.K. There is little real need for us to have private aircraft to go long distances (as is often the case in the U.S). There are lots of exciting things to do with our time and money. We mostly invite someone into a run down portacabin with smelly toilets, ignore them, throw them into an old fashioned aircraft, give them average tuition, force them to wait around for their next lesson, and... and... and....
Until we can sort out this situation all flying schools are in the process of going bust it is just a matter of who can hold out longer than the club next door.
Perhaps a bit extreme but the description above is not too far from the truth.
Where does the blame lie, and more importantly how can it be changed?
Some outfits understand this (UH to name but one) and try and move the game on a bit but at ab initio level getting the quality of experience up whilst not pricing it out of reach of the majority is always going to be difficult.
So maybe:
Let the price rise, target the high income, high expectation, individuals with a MUCH better experience. Get the marketing, the environment, the service levels, right.
At the lower end of the market make it even cheaper, NPPL, self help, unlicenced airfields, experienced PPLS instructing (not guys who really dont want to be there).
Just a thought!