BEagle makes a very valid point.
I have, over the years, heard moaning about every large FTO management. Including SFT.
The reasons are varied and complex. Largely they have to do with the fact that a student is spending £50 grand and the school is making about a £1 grand profit out of them. So one party is spending and incredible amount of money and the other is making very little.
This leads to a great imbalance in the customer/vendor relationship. Students expect the customer service that they would enjoy in a Jaguar delearship. The FTO can only afford Harrys Car Kiwk Mart customer service.
The whole process of ground and flight training is hard work and stressful.
This leads to frayed tempers which - often - post successful training ex-students often wonder what they were complaining about. Inevitably some students struggle due to their own lack of calibre. It is an unfortunate human attribute that one tends to blame everyone BUT yourself. The first and the easiest target is FTO management.
People rarely blame the ground or flying instructors. They rarely blame their course mates who drag them off down the pub. But the Management...
I do not want to be an apologist for BAE. I think that they probably do need a few more FI's to match their impressive fleet of aircraft. I think that their groundschool is mediocre. I think that at £47k the course is probably the best bet for the single Wannabe looking for the full integrated course. I personally would follow the modular route as I have never had access to that kind of money and I think that you can pick the best groundschool and the best flying training much much better by going modular.
But I know an awful lot about training so I am atypical.
I was talking this week to 3 ex-Jerez student who ALL moaned about the place/management/groundschool/food/Spain when they were there. To a man they look back on their time there with great fondness, think it was the right place to train and wish to go back for a visit soon...
Cheers,
WWW