I'll believe FTA are dead when the planes are sold off and someone else is using their buildings. PB seems to always have some trick up his sleeve.
I'm of the believe things have not been good for a while, and the recent big advertising push is once last shot to attract students are bring in the dollars. PB's cash for comments in the recent Australian Flying is worth a laugh.
Captain Peter Boughen...who is managing director of Flight Training Australia in Brisbane, says now is a very good tome, not a bad time, to be starting training to become an airline pilot.
He admits that this sounds like the sort of thing that flying training organisation would be expected to say, but backs up his views with his experience of international airline consultancy.
"If you start training today it will probably be a minimum of about two years before you reach a stage where the airlines are interested in employing you - and by that time things should have started moving again."
Yes Peter, that sounds exactly like the sort of thing a flying training organisation would say. I hope the two year thing is not the sort of spin you are using to bring $$$ through the door.
From the above posts, comments from other pilots and my own observations, things don't look very good at all. Gordon, like him or not, is out of the picture as CFI because of illness. ML is off to CASA, DStJ went and set up his own school (taking a bunch of pilots with him). DStJ leaving and a lack of CFI for AV8 was the reason behind the merger of the two schools. Word on the street is the CFI they want to use from YBCG is only a short term option. CASA won't approve PB as CFI while he is working as an airline pilot.
So the senior pilots have walked, and a number of other instructors have left as well. Oh, but new junior pilots will be attracted to an instructor rating at FTA hypnotised by PB's promises of jets and Cirrus aircraft down the track.
I laugh when their press releases say they are QLD's biggest flying school. A recent visit to YBAF showed a number of dirty, maroon aircraft not moving with long grass under the wings. The refuellers claim they only go through about half the fuel of other schools. Either FTA's pilots are very good at leaning or they are simply not flying.