How Pi***d Am I At Egnatia Greece

[davidathomas42]

Well I finally got my License today from the Greek CAA, did my CPL check ride with Egnatia Aviation in Kavala and I was very unhappy with the school.

This is what I was unhappy with not just moaning for monaings sake.

Arrived on the Monday bright and early at the school at 07:30 to meet the chief pilot to discuss my training, was told to sit on a sofa and he will be right with me, he was by 11:30am!, no flying the first day for me, get here in the morning (tuesday) to fly, arrived again at 07:30 on there free shuttle service from the accomidation and was flying at 13:30, so sat around on the internet all morning, plane was a DA42 and was good, the tower speak in Greek a lot which I guess you have to put up with in Greece even though the Aviation language is English. anyway, flight was ok but I was very rusty from the ATPL break.

Wed my flight was canceled and no reason given, flew thurs and friday no probs but only once because my instructor has 2 other students and was only allowed to fly 5hours a day for some reason??

there was no flights on saturday or sunday because he was not allowed to fly at weekends??? so in my first week I had 3 flights! in my PPL I had 14 flights in my first week and was expecting the same level of commitment to getting through the CPL

the 2nd week I managed to get two flights one day but then the plane broke and as they only have one DA42 I had 2days off again doing nothing, so that was 5 flights in 10 days! in total I did 20hours including test in 3weeks! could have done that in one week.

but I got finished and filled in all the paperwork and was told 3weeks to get my license issued, yea right!!!! it took in total 3months and 2weeks!

I called them weekly for progress, first it was that my hours were wrong? I emailed them over, then it was well because of the hours mistake it will be another 3weeks, a month passed and I was told that it takes at least a month and not enough time had passed, a couple of weeks later I was told that the person I need to speak to is not here call tomorrow, so i did and got the same all week, then they finlaly told me it was ready after 2months so I waited for it to turn up, two weeks later I phoned and they said no its not here yet????? turns out it was just my RT license they have! 2weeks later I phoned and was told its been issued but the Greek CAA wont send it without having my old PPL, the school had this for over 2 months now! but at least I though first class mail to the Greek CAA from the school and first class mail back again, but again two weeks later it still had not arrived and the woman taking care of it was not in again!

finally after 3months and 1 week I call and they say they have my license! so post it! seems nothing is ever done unless you badger them to do it.

finally got it today and O MY GOD! the renual date is 23/08/08 which is a year after the test date, fair enough, but there is a hand writtain date on it saying issued 10/09/2007! so why if it was issued then did it take 3months and about 50 phone calls to get it to me??? O and they sent it in my old PPL brown wallet not a CPL Blue one!

I AM VERY UNHAPPY WITH THE SCHOOL, THERE WERE MANY ,MORE THINGS THAT P****D ME OFF BUT JUST DONT HAVE THE EFFORT TO WRITE IT NOW AFTER ALL THAT, JUST NEEDED TO UNLOAD SOME FRUSTRATION.

I RECCOMEND DONT GO THERE AT ALL, ITS NOT WORTH THE CASH SAVING, WOULD RATHER HAVE PAID MORE HERE AND DEAL WITH ENGLISH PEOPLE.

[moggiee]

I RECCOMEND DONT GO THERE AT ALL, ITS NOT WORTH THE CASH SAVING, WOULD RATHER HAVE PAID MORE HERE AND DEAL WITH ENGLISH PEOPLE.
That doesn't quite tally with your praise for a non-UK school here: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=300807&page=2

So, is it just Egnatia or all foreign schools that have annoyed you?

[davidathomas42]

not quite sure where you going with that???? I praised Aerodynamics and slated Egnatia! so whats the problem???

I said dont go there, as in dont go to Egnatia but said go to Aerodynamics?

[wbryce]

David, your one of many to have posted simular sentiments about Egnatia, do a search and you will find all the threads.

[gmac1977]

You cannot blame Egnatia for the HCAA being poor?

[davidathomas42]

I can blame them for only flying 3 flights a week when you should really be doing 14!

[gmac1977]

Yes you can, but a plane going tech and the HCAA you cannot.

The rest sounds poor though.

[davidathomas42]

it went tech over a door catch for two days,, a 10cents piece of metal,,, i am used to dealing with crap flight schools, i did the OFT thing! lol but the greeks really are a joke, they just have a no rush policy to anything over there, and what a joke flight schools not flying at weekends, would have been nice to know that, been as i was paying accomidation to sit there and wan* off all weekend!

[BigGrecian]

3 weeks for a Commercial sounds about right.

Doing around 20 hours in a week aids nothing as you have no time to considerate any of the skills - yes you might have passed the test, but I'm prepared to bet that your skills would be of a higher standard as a result of a slightly longer course.

Flight Instructors have Flight Time Limitations - daily, monthly and annually, and as someone who has just done their ATPLs I would expect you to be aware of this.
Instructors also have a personal life as well, and can't give every student their undivided attention, otherwise all they'd do is work - so a weekend off? I'm sure you don't work the hours they do. (duty time as well as flight time)

As a note I have never been to the said school or know anyone who has.

[YYZ]

No school will just leave you on the ground, they will fly you as much as they feel able, they only really get paid once you flying!

YYZ

[davidathomas42]

I know all about FI as I am a FAA CFI also, I did not go there with 150hours and a brand new PPL, I had a FAA Multi CPL, a FAA CFI Multi License, A FAA IR and around 300 Multi time!

sorry but three weeks is far too long, I was not doing a full CPL course, theres no hour requirement its training as needed, and sat on the ground for 4 days out of 7 is a joke! and yea instructors need tome off, so put me with two! but no, they only have 1 instructor allowed in the twin and hes only allowed to fly 5 hours between 3 students! he should have 2 students for that many hours.

I needed an IR after that and he axctuly said he would be too busy to do it as other students are finishing ground school and doing there IR so theat why I came home and did not do it, they just dont have the aircraft or the instructors to get stuff done.

[dartagnan]

all in UK! my cpl took 4 weeks for 16 hours single engine for the cpl, and 2 months for 18hours for the multi IR (and some sim time) cuz the plane was overbooked.

the UK issued me the CPL IR license in a week.
and over 5 weeks for my A320 type rating.



so I let you figure out this!!!

[moggiee]

not quite sure where you going with that???? I praised Aerodynamics and slated Egnatia! so whats the problem???
I said dont go there, as in dont go to Egnatia but said go to Aerodynamics?
You actually said you'd rather have dealt with English peopleimplying dissatisfaction with "foreign" schools as a whole.

[davidathomas42]

you have too much time on your hands to care

[woofwoof]

Moggiee

Ive searched some of your posts and you do appear to have some sort of 'downer' on non UK fto's

Maybe if there is a genuine reason for this, you could post some detail to give other wannabees who are about to spend considerable amounts of time and money the benefit of your experience to give additional background information to help make an informed choice when selecting a training establishment.

Im sure there are good and bad points to both training either home and abroad. I feel we all have a responsibility to use these forums to give constructive and balanced feedback.

Before you ask, no Im not linked to any particular school either at home or abroad, and if I were I would make some sort of reference to it on my posts, as some of the more genuine and "transparent" fto´s tend to do when posting on this site.

[davidathomas42]

Moggiee

Ive searched some of your posts and you do appear to have some sort of 'downer' on non UK fto's

----------------------------------------------

compleatly wrong, I hate uk flight schools and flying in this country for training and GA, hope the airlines are better, should be as getting paid rather than paying to fly cant be worse

I am an FAA pilot by heart and have zero love for UK schools and Greeks, there is just not the same set up over here, and even though i say i am FAA there not all that much better,, well OFT is not,, I flew with 4schools in America in total and just OFT was a joke, the others were great I though,, my opinions are based on what I expect and what I got.

so OFT SHI%E!
Orlando Executive School , Great
Sunstate Flight School, Great
American Flyers, Expencive but awesome!

UK
Multi Flight, Leeds, They just bored me to death
Egnatia Greece, big joke and too much hassle
Aerodynamics Malaga, Great School

o and Sheffield City Flying school where I rent, nice people good planes and nice relaxed place to fly.

Pretty much done with this thread now, said what I wanted to so make your own mind up on my comments after all this forum is just to gather info and make your own desicions on which bits to use to better yourself, hope some of my points are valid and help, if not you passed 10mins of your life without dieing from eating to much cheese.

[moggiee]

Moggiee
Ive searched some of your posts and you do appear to have some sort of 'downer' on non UK fto's
Maybe if there is a genuine reason for this, you could post some detail to give other wannabees who are about to spend considerable amounts of time and money the benefit of your experience to give additional background information to help make an informed choice when selecting a training establishment.
I don't have a downer on overseas FTOs, just poor ones. The merits or otherwise of training overseas have long been discussed, especially with regard to Spain (in particular). I stand by what I said in those posts.

As a general rule though, I personally believe that if it's possible, it pays to train with an FTO which is overseen by the authority that administers the area in which you plan to fly. E.g. train in the UK for a UK job and Germany for a German job etc. Having instructed for a number of years at a UK CAA regulated overseas JAA FTO I know full well that geography makes less of a difference than the attitude of the regulator.

For example, we frequently see people who are converting FAA licences who find the transition much more challenging than they expected. They often struggle to get used to UK procedurtes, R/T, ATC etc.

For experienced pilots, like the original poster, it's less of an issue but for chaps at the bottom of the experience curve it can be.

As I say, personal opinion based upon personal experience - but I know a lot of other instructors feel this way, too.

[AIR SEYCHELLES 787]

So..after all that hassle with the HCAA and the lack of flying, you actually still managed to get a CPL with Egnatia. I think that actually makes this the most positive thread about Egnatia in a while.

[AIR9000]

DEAR DAVID,

Being very interested about EGNATIA AVIATION please send me more info,if possible,about the total time of your studies the IR training which is very important because the vast majority of the greek airports doesn't have ILS equipment and finally if some students found a job upon successful completion of graduation.

KIND REGARDS,
AIR9000:)

[virginpilot1087]

Reviving an old thread due to the name Egnatia popping up else where,

has anyone got any recent experiance of the school since this thread started?

[smangnall]

A friend of mine instructs there and she couldn't do more for the students! They have more a/c than instructors so can cope with one going tech.

Don't believe all this bulls**t about CPL in a week. I did mine on a complex single - 15 hours and it took 4 weeks with Cabair, one of the leading UK schools. It was a flight every other day but there is a lot of ground study required for both the CPL and IR and most people don't realise this, so study when not flying. Once you start the IR you will be glad of a days breather - it's demanding!

Go speak to people for yourself and see what it is really like!

Everyone slags OFT on this forum also but I did most of my initial training with them and the instructors are very knowledgable and happy to help. You will get messed around a little by most flight schools including Uk ones!

Best of luck with your studies.

Simon Mangnall
Flight Instructor with a UK School.

[I'm proud of you]

Nice one Smangnall :D:D:D

[virginpilot1087]

Easy to have more aircraft than instructors when only 1 instructor that can fly the planes! i had to share my cfi with two other students and only got to fly 2 or 3 days a week due to that!

i expect cpl to take longer in uk due weather, but it was 90deg and cavok every day in greece,,,, and only 1 twin, that went tech for 2days. thats fine in the uk when you can go home and do other things, but when your in greece paying for accomidation and food away from home and got nothing to do but sit in the school all day doing nothing its crap, and then the weekend hits and you cant fly again until monday because the one cfi they had there flying the twin did not work weekends.

sorry but its just not upto speed there yet.