I'm wondering what the difference, in cost and quality, might be when you compare going to a "partner" school as a student and going through "Wings Alliance" to the same school.
If they don't charge more for the same thing, then where is the revenue stream for WA coming from?
The WA system is intended to overcome the advantages that students from the big integrated schools have over modular students, when seeking employment. So if the WA students are somehow given more favourable treatment that ordinary (non WA) students at the same school, then the non-WA students at WA schools really are being pushed to the bottom of the heap.
Is there a fee payable by the student to WA and if so, what does he get for that? Or, is there a "kickback" to WA from the schools for referrals?
From what I have seen on the WA website, the only additional cost (compared to non-WA students at the same WA schools), is the cost of the WA MCC/JOC.
What's the benefit of a student using WA? Are we to believe that WA has better hooks into the airlines than the existing schools that have been feeding them for years? Could it be that the recommendation comes from the same guy at the school, but with a different hat on, so it is taken more seriously?
Both of these propositions seem to me to be unlikely.
When I am asked for advice, I need to say that I've looked into it first. So I wanted to understand if this WA is simply a marketing body for member schools, or if there is actually some underlying value.
I suspect that the primary objective is to increase sales for the member schools, but I also believe that some of the people involved really do want to improve the lot of the modular students.
If you go to the WA website you can read the advantages listed for both the schools and the students. The headline statements make a lot of noise about “high standards and quality training”, but there does not appear to be any internal QA system whereby WA can control these factors. If the standards and quality in WA schools really are higher than in ordinary non-WA schools, we might reasonably expect that some schools will have applied to join WA and been rejected. Potential customers might like to ask if this has ever happened?