Shoreham school closed down

[MikeJeff]

Takeabreak,

To take some of your points from someone who had inside information on both sides of the fence...

I agree that EGKA has a large number of schools go bust. However, premier going bust was a result of the owner nicking everyone's money a going to Spain, harldy the fault of the airport is it? Stanair (Ace's first trading name) went under becasue the CFI spent lot's of cash on "looking after" his underage students. Flying Matters (new ACE), was closed (may not be bust yet, but they can't run a flying school from home can they!) becasue it should never have been opened in the first place! needless to say they had 3 aircraft and only one full time instructor who left plus a few part time instructors, plus a LOT of instructors who came and left (how bad must u be if instructors leave becasue of working conditions!).

Another issue you raised was the unreasonableness of the airport management. When Stanair was closed the debt to the airport was at least £36,000. Now I believe one of the nice cessnas was sold to pay some of this debt I don't know the specifics. I don't know what was owed to the airport in terms of rent this time (I got barred from the school for speaking my mind by then!) but I know two aircraft has a combined debt to the airport of just under £10k. The owners of the Cessna have had to pay a considerable sum to get these aircraft released. After giving them such a stay of execution this time, why should they be given another stay this time around?

As for who paid for the holiday, well takeabreak, the only person to suggest that the holiday was paid for by the company was you! Whoever paid for the holiday, ths issues are 1) money could've been better spent to keep the business going and 2) the business was clearly knackered, maybe going off on a jolly to oz was a bit of a silly thing to do. They were closed down less than a week after the return and they must have been given enough notice of their eviction! Whether or not miss x is ill or not she would've been given more than enough time to sort things out. It's not a case of 10 minutes notice, this will have been ongoing for months!

I don't know which members of staff you have been speaking to but none that I know, which includes all the ops staff and 2 of the 3 instructors has heard from anyone!! lots are owed money. I personally believe that the owner is fine and hidden away somewhere, hopefully never to be seen again.

So Takeabreak, everything you say is utter rubbish (BRL et al, PM me if you want any assurance about anything said I can provide contacts with several people at EGKA who will support the direct things I've said). The business was run awfully, I don't believe malicously, just badly. The owner, lived in a Walter Mitty world and believed she was untouchable. The other owner (the original owners mum!) was so biased and wore such big blinkers that she may as well have not been there - again leaving an 84 year old husband in the early stages of dementia to go on holiday to oz for several weeks is also questionable!

Now excuse me for the diatribe, someone here may possibly thing that I have a personal gripe here! I certainly do, no need to go into detail here but the outcome of this included me being slagged off and accused of a number of things that I didn't do. Fortunatly, the general population of the airport didn't believe a word of it and after everything that has happened I feel vindicated! One example was one of the young guys on the ops desk (only 16 and sorted so much of the mess out!) was scared to go to one of the restaurants becasue he had been convinced that I was going to kick the living sh1t out of him. Fortunatly we're buddies again you'll all be glad to know!

So yes, I have issues here and I personally am delighted with the outcome! I just hope the lying miss x informs the CAA of her medical issues...