I've been emailing this school since last week and not had a reply either. Shame as it makes me want to look elsewhere.

The school only reopened from Christmas break and Spanish religious holiday last Wednesday. They are now working through over 1800 emails with inquiries just like yours. The problem with email and the always on internet world is people forget how to show a little patience..... Please feel free to drop me a PM and I will help you.

Hi, and thank you,

I know we are all impatient these days, but that's the whole point of email or I could just put a letter in the post. Although I wouldn't trust the Spanish post either!

I live and work in Spain and part of what I have to do is answer emails for a company. I answer emails 7 days a week from 8am until about 10.30pm at night, even on Christmas Day. I even answer emails when I am out of the country on holiday. If I cannot answer emails in detail then I am expected to send a quick reply acknowledging the email and saying I will get back to them as soon as I can. It's basic customer service.

I accept there are holidays here - Monday 6th of January was a holiday yes - but I work holidays. I also accept that people are fully entitled to have holidays off, and because of all this I will wait maybe two days, three if I'm in a good mood :D But when it becomes five days with no response, it doesn't look good.

If I am looking to spend €10k with a company (I don't know the exact price because I haven't had a reply - and that is all I wanted to know) then yes, I expect a quicker response.

I went to their FB page to try and contact them that way, or see if they had prices on there (I didn't see any), and I saw someone else complaining about a lack of response a year ago so things don't seem to have changed. Then on here I read the same kind of thing from others.

I hope they can reply to me soon because I would still like to do my PPL with them.

Do you know them, or fly / work with them?

I am the Head of Training. I don't deal with responses to emails for courses. However when I went into the admin staff on Wednesday and asked why they had not responded to my email about something I was shown the outstanding queue of emails that had come in over Christmas while the school was closed that stood at over 1200 unread messages.

Whilst I find your dedication to your work highly laudable and in fact even admirable, I and the school do not expect the admin staff to be so dedicated as you and neither does Spanish law permit us to expect that level of dedication. I have offered to personally intervene and assist you out of hours and outside MY job description. Please feel free to avail your self of that offer or wait for the school to respond. If that level of response does not suit you then I am happy to recommend other schools that may be able to respond faster.

Your budget is pretty much bang on for a PPL(A). Please free to PM me if you want to talk further.

Welcome to the world of private flying! My civil aviation administration now has an average queue of SEVEN weeks for a simple licence renewal - I do not mail them because it will only keep those poor understaffed people away from their real job, so I cannot say how long they take to respond. But both your expectations and your own claimed work intensity seem very excessive to me.

Most of all: do not even think of ever taking up learning to fly in such a hurried state of mind, you will only land yourself in the trees. The thing requires a relaxed approach.

I don't think expecting to get a response to a sales enquiry (from any company) within a week is unreasonable. If we kept our customers waiting that long they would likely book elsewhere (we do holiday lettings). My work intensity isn't excessive. I answer emails when they come in. I don't have thousands to deal with but the mailbox is monitored 7 days a week and keeping on top of things means they don't build up for us. Just our way of doing things.

Maybe for impatience you could read excitement and enthusiasm :)

This is not just my experience / opinion, as others have also had communication issues with them going back a year.

Anyway I have kindly taken up the head trainer's offer to PM him so maybe I can get some information that way.

ATPL residential
 

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience of ATPL residential training and/or CPL flight training at FIS?

Thanks!

I did my EASA FW CPL there...

Very happy...

Would you recommend over an integrated course? I’ve been emailing them back and forth and they told me they don’t offer integrated courses anymore.

The way our courses are structured is it allows you to set your own pace. We run them as an integrated flow but with greater flexibility and the ability to pay as you go per module. It is obviously significantly cheaper to do it this was as well. Its a more relaxed atmosphere without uniforms and airline type rostering for you training schedule. What you get at the end is the same CPL/ME/IR with ATPL exam pass but in a more flexible arrangement.

How long does it take on average to get a reply from them after an enquire? Are they officially operating these days?
And are their PA-28's IFR equipped?

The school officially reopened on Monday. The staff are now working through a massive backlog of inquiries so please bear with them. Its been a VERY long 3 months and there is a lot to do.

Thanks for your reply, I will be waiting.