Slightly off topic I admit, so mods feel free to start a new thread.
One of the problems at the small end of the industry is exactly the tendancy of third parties broking flying services and wanting to take too much of the available profit with no real risk. Whilst charter brokers operate on a reasonably consistent %, the trial lesson type products are all too often marketed by third party brokers such as experience voucher companies at unrealistic rates. I know of a couple of punters who managed to get a T/L £40 cheaper from the voucher company than the supplier was charging the Voucher company. Obviously they won't stay in business very long but this behaviour corrupts the market.
Letting brokers set the price artificially holds prices down to suit the voucher companies and prevents market prices from rising to reflect increasing costs. If voucher companies are not made to charge a premium over our operators' prices, returns to flying schools will continue to be eroded! Voucher companies used to add their profit on top of operator prices, now they want massive discounts and they set flying schools off against one another by claiming that each school is more expensive than the next.