Egnatia Aviation Greece

[georgez]

A reply from the school

G-STAR – You are just spreading bull**** with no substance and with obvious intentions. ‘Only 2 DA40's and 1 DA42 for the whole school !!! (which was broken again, so I was told by some students)’ What a lie! You were told by some students? Rubish.

Yes there is only one Twin at present (there two others as backup options) which flies over 100 hours every month for training – pretty good for an aircraft that ‘is broken all the time’.

I think I remember your style of writing with a different nick.

Zerotohero – you said that you did a conversion at Egnatia and you made some comments. In the same order:

- Only one pilot flying the twin. That is strange as there always no less than 3 full time ME/CPL/IR instructors. Currently Yiannos, Stelios, Reizis, and if required Dimitris and the HoT. Total 5 available. You only saw one? Which one? And he was bored to tears? They all fly 80 or more hours a month in total with free weekends and they are bored to tears? Based on increasing number of the CVs we receive every week I am sure most instructors around Europe would like to have this kind of bordom.

- You only flew once a day. Some days yes. Did you finish your training on time? That is what matters. Flight scheduling is done with all students in mind.

- ATCs like to speak their own language all over the world. The ATC in Kavala Airport only speak Greek to Olympic Airways pilots (and maybe one or two of the Aegean pilots) and only when the pilots initiate the call. They always speak English to the Egnatia students with very very few exceptions when they request specific field or weather information in the training areas etc. They are a lot better than most non English speaking countries that I have flown such as France and Italy.

- Wifi – the students have their own ADSL connection at the school, which is ALWAYS on. How the students use it is up to them. Some download or streaming movies some do other things. I can not see why the school should spend any time regulating a not essential for the training service that it is offered for free – we should get a thank you. Reagrding the apartments, all have wifi on the same basis and no air conditioning (they all have central heating). All the apartments are new and basically equipped and the accommodation is free. If students want more, there are hotels available. Staying in the school’s accommodation is neither mandatory nor part of your aviation training.

- Yes, no food or drink is allowed in the classrooms. In addition the course is based on Bristol’s guiding CBT system which is a mixture of instructor and self study. It is a modern and very successful combination as the average pass rate and first pass stats show.

- There are at least two free transfers a day (three most days). It is impossible for us to have a car and driver ready for whenever each student decided to go home! Get real people. Again we do have to provide this service at all – most students appreciate it, do not criticise it.

- The license issue – do you know many schools that will undertake the issuing of your license? In ALL cases I know it is up to the student to do whatever is necessary for the license issue. Again another added service that most people appreciate but some would prefer a prefect service tailored to their own liking. By they way, licenses for conversions always take a bit longer due to the fact that the CAA needs to check ICAO documents from many countries and sometimes has to request copies records, ratings etc in order to include in the JAA license. There not always straightforward. Sometimes they can be waiting for the students to return their previous original licences etc.

Again zerotohero. Did we deliver what we said, in the agreed timescales and for the price we quoted? Was your training good? Was the aircraft new and modern? Were you treated properly?

The school is going from strength to strength at the time most other schools are shrinking or going bankrupt. It now has 8 new aircraft and a brand new Alsim ALX simulator. It will soon offer MCC, JOC and other courses, plus an integrated 0-ATPL course with type rating and airline line training.

The reasons are obvious.