Touche my fellow aviators! It is agreed that charging every student the individual briefing rate is a bit crap from the student point of view (I've been there myself). However the flip-side is that if student's don't pay, employers can't pay and if employers pay peanuts then all you get are monkeys!
With respect to charging a pre-flight briefing, it has been my experience (over 1000 hrs of ab-initio instruction) that before each ab-initio flight can commence, an instructor must first:
- find the student,
- give a preflight brief,
- conduct or supervise the sign-out (making student has all required
equipment) and reviewing of MR etc,
- go with the student to supervise a pre-flight inspection (direct or indirect
depending on the student's level of competency)
- get strapped in; and
- get checks done to finally start the engine!
To complete that for every flight takes on average 60 minutes... that is time the employer has to pay the instructor for (or any reasonable employer should be). Why should a student who is utilising the said instructor's time not pay for it?
Another point to note is that NOT ONCE have I heard the question being asked at the airline level as to "which school did you learn to fly at?" Where learning to fly matters is will the training (and your self promotion skills) get you your FIRST job? It is your experience since gaining a that coveted license that matters for every subsequent job.