NH2390,
Are these facilities and aircraft not shared? I do believe they are and any EFT student has full access to the facilities I mentioned before.
Are all these 120 students flying at the same time all throughout the day? I don't think so. There is not enough aircraft for this to be possible. There is always a steady flow of students from both schools either coming or going for flights. In two years I would never have said that the place was ever crowded.
Availability of aircraft in any school is a matter of give and take, the relationship between EFT and Ari Ben is a healthy one and the two will always come to a managable solution if a conflict arises. The aircraft are leased from Ari-Ben on an as required basis, this is not an uncommon practice in the world of aviation.
If you have issues with the quality and professionalism of Ari-Ben I suggest you raise it with them. Also, the fact you have never received training from EFT hardly qualifies you to criticise on the above points. The team at EFT is well trained and they run a disciplined training schedule. I know these people personally and professionally and they are a very fine bunch of instructors that provide an excellent service to the students which rivals any JAA school in the industry.
As I said before the two schools work very well together and there are rarely any problems a student needs to be concerned with.
Overall the situation is positve, but I will never say it is perfect. There will always be problems, but these are generally minor. As per the cost of accomodation, I don't know how much it is now, but any student would need to check directly with EFT to verify the amount.
With regard to the visa being illegal, please establish the basis of your comment with some more information. In my experience the US government, IRS, USCIS and homeland security have never seemed to have a problem with it. The reason I know this is I have just been through the process of alien registration and I think they might have bought it up if I had been in the country working illegally for the past two years. My application was approved without query.
Mark.