I did not want to be caught up in this debate, however it is now time to enter the fray, so to speak.
I am the Head of Training at Pilot Assist and as such am annoyed at this thread. I and my colleagues have put too much work in to making Pilot Assist a success for us and our students to see it tarnished by a person who has an axe to grind.
The facts are that we require a certain level of knowledge to enter our programme and require all students to reach that standard. If a new student has a ppl from whatever training provider, they are required to go through a foundation course at ppl level to revise, refresh and even to gain more knowledge so thier transition into the atpl's is made smoother. As can you see, we do care about our students. The main reason behind this is that the average ppl school pays only lip service to the ppl ground school and just gives the student a ppl confuser to learn.
Yes we charge an admin fee, this is because we do a huge ammount of work on thier behalf and this costs money, the new student is told of this right up front.
The £300 cost of the ppl course is you might say a deposit towards the atpl's and if the student upon completion of thier ppl, enters atpl, the £300 is taken off the cost of the atpl course.
To end this and hopefully for good, I have a staff of nine part time instructors, all of whom are highly motivated and professional and have the students' interest at heart. The College has responded to the requirements of the airlines and the students we train will have a better than average chance of getting the much coverted right hand seat.
Lets all stop throwing teddies about and behave like adults.