Who's Learning to Fly???

[You've Got]

Anyone had any dealings with an agency going by the name Learning to Fly??

Appears they source international students for local schools and things aren't what they seem to be.

Administration fees appear to be a large factor in the billing process with some unhappy visitors to our shores.

When will the locals give foreign visitors bring investment a fair deal????.......:sad:

Could be a nice concept but appears someone got greedy!!:suspect:

[MicroFlyer]

I sincerely hope you don't mean Learn to Fly at Lanseria.

If it is in fact Learn to Fly, then I doubt you should trust your source. I know someone who did his twin conversion at Learn to Fly, and their service was excellent, and he seems quite pleased.

Cheers :ugh:

[You've Got]

Don't think it is the Lanseria crowd.

Sounds like an agency based in Durban that offers students packages and has deals with local flying schools.

Had two recent foreigners complain of the same thing and it wasn't the school fleecing them.

[goaround7]

Ripped off a couple of Europeans who came to fly at our old friends, Bassair, on helis too.

[Latent Heat]

Found this on the net. www.flight-schools.net/news/articles.shtml

Similar set up as "Sky's the Limit". This company advertises.."Fly in anything" from fighter jets to helicopters to Bi-Planes to Ballons...

A two horse show that owns nothing, sells everything and takes a fat commission on all referals......which at the end of the day is comes out of the consumers pocket....

[tongwe]

The agency you speak of is in fact a web based system operating as a brokerage. Some time back a friend suggested I chat with a guy who was bringing students in and what a fantastic opportunity blah blah fishpaste.
I spoke to the owner who tried to entice me into a franchise and "guarenteed" me at least 20 students a month from overseas. The money was not in the flight training per say as this business was farmed to existing schools who had a sliding % scale dependendant on requirement. The money came from, comm on the airticket to SA, comm on the accomodation, comm on the car hire etc...
As convincing it may have sounded, i declined his genourous offer of investing R200,000 for the franchise.
Sad to hear it is still out there, but, I suppose for every tale of woe, there are stories of sucess.

[canthover]

A couple of disgruntled students at Virginia spoke of being suckered into paying deposits and then when 75% of the deposit was used up were asked for more money. On enquiry it was established that the large discrepancy was for an admin fee which went unexplained, shortly followed by threats upon further questioning.

So be warned all prospective students - call the flight schools directly - they will gladly arrange your accommodation/local car hire etc and give the prices directly as they need the flying.

You'll get more bang for your buck, with less hassle and still enjoy your flying!!!!

[kennyd]

I have had dealings with Learn to Fly in Durban (LTF), yes the service was good.....but I got lumped with an extra "handling fee" which I was not informed about. I wanted to do my SA Night Rating in Durban earlier this year and was looking at Durban since I had done my PPL in PE and wanted do it in a different part of the country. I could not get a hold of any of the Durban based Flight Schools by email but then came across this website through a search engine, Flight Schools.net which listed Flight Schools in Durban, I clicked on this and then requested more info. I was quoted an all in cost for the basic Traumahawk for my Night Rating. Having read horror stories (rumours) about paying upfront etc on PPRUNE, I opted to pay a small deposit in order to secure the course (turned out that I did not actually need to pay this deposit to secure the course) and opted to pay the flight school direct and only in lumps of £500 (about R5200) in advance. I also decided to swap to the Cherokee as it was better equipped for the night flying. I also decided to take a friend for a flip. My shock came when I got to square up accounts at the end of the course and was told there was a % handling fee to pay to Learn to Fly on top of the cost that I had been quoted for the Cherokee. Not a huge fee interms of £s but none the less an extra that I had not budgeted for. At the time I was not sure if this had been discussed on an email that was sent to me or if it was on their website that they charged a commission on top of the Wet Rates the schools paid. So with time being short and with the fact that I had only flown a few hours and the amounts were not worth the hassle I decided I would pay up and chalk it up to experience. When I got back home in the UK, I trawled through all my emails with LTF and their website to see if they said that a commission is payable and no where could I find any reference to this.

As I said no problem with the service just that I was not happy about paying an extra cost after the fact, I would have like to have been told that there were extra fees and then have the option to chose the agent route or actually go directly to the school:sad:

[Sir Cumference]

You've Got. Thank you for bringing this to the attention of all. Seems such a shame when we have a great potential to bring students to this country, all of us benefit from their visit, they get a great deal yet someone has to be ripping them off!

Kennyd was nice enough to feel that the amount was that small so as not to worry about. The principal stinks. Am i led to believe that if the money is not paid, threats are made to call authorities re visa'a etc? This is a rumour I have heard about this operator!

[Gooneybird]

Someone should sticky this stuff.

Never pay up front!

Having the visa tied to a particular school also helps these idiots rip people off.

Basically, South Africa provides great training at a good price, but this visa crap needs clearing up.

At present, if the school you're at doesn't have an aircraft available, as a foreigner it's not possible to simply go down the road and find one that does.

[Gerard123]

should i go to learn to fly or LFC for my twin rating?

[Gooneybird]

Go and take a look at both, see which one you like. Which one has best aircraft availability? No major overhauls due etc.

There's no point asking an opinion from this forum really, as noones opinion will be unbiased. You just have to choose one, suck it and see.