Some very good points above.
Most students don't "hate" many of those things though as often they are unaware of them.
IN my experience, the reason students leave thier flight school and go in search of another are simple lack of basic customer service. This is what we often hear:
- I had a different instructor every time
- When I turned up I was told my lesson was cancelled or running so late I had to go [this was my biggest gripe when I was learning but these days with mobile phones there is no excuse!]
- My instructor was always angry and imapatient and showed no respect
- My instructor had poor personal hygiene/ stank of garlic
- The aeroplanes were old and small and smelt of sick and I didn't feel safe with all that gaffa tape holding it together
- I just felt like a number
- The people on the desk are hostile
- They promised me I'd get a job with Qantas straight after CPL but a Qantas pilot just told me that's not actually true
- Unexpected costs bumping up the invoice every time
- Endless repetition of the same lesson with no explanation why
- I felt that I might have actually been able to learn how to land if my instructor hadn't always been texting and facebooking on final
Just basic customer service, it's not hard.
but yeah my biggest gripe now is when students come from another school and I have to tell them that "But my last instructor said I should always..." does NOT override the POH or whatever other reference is applicable...! Why don't instructors tell thier students WHY they should do things? Is it because they really only know the old wives tales?