Baltic Aviation Academy
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What’s the point of moving all the aircraft to Spain when (a) operations are still continuing in LT and (b) there are not enough instructors to fly them. Yes the 2006 arrived and another is planned - but see (b) above!
You cannot build anything on shaky foundations and at the moment BAA management are working to resolve the issues. Question would be is have they identified all those issues yet?
I understand and the frustration felt by students awaiting training progress but BAA Lleida Operations are very new and will require some time to bed in and get things right. Tremendous potential with some good staff and instructors - give it and them time to realise that potential.
You cannot build anything on shaky foundations and at the moment BAA management are working to resolve the issues. Question would be is have they identified all those issues yet?
I understand and the frustration felt by students awaiting training progress but BAA Lleida Operations are very new and will require some time to bed in and get things right. Tremendous potential with some good staff and instructors - give it and them time to realise that potential.
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@Duchess_Driver
I understand of your position however students are not the experimental object to make potential of staff to come out. Students pay money, quite big money therefore they have right to complain. Imagine you buy a bad product from a store what would you do next day? Bring that product and either refund it or get the better one. BAA sold the bad product to students and continue to do it. Finally frustration is not only about Spain but regarding to whole operation.
About (a) there is no operation in LT especially VFR during winter season and this is minimum of 4 months. (b) BAA must hire a instructor to fly them. They could spend couple of hundred thousand EUROS for marketing, millions on FFS however they cant spend any single cent on instructors which are keystone of the flight training.
I understand of your position however students are not the experimental object to make potential of staff to come out. Students pay money, quite big money therefore they have right to complain. Imagine you buy a bad product from a store what would you do next day? Bring that product and either refund it or get the better one. BAA sold the bad product to students and continue to do it. Finally frustration is not only about Spain but regarding to whole operation.
About (a) there is no operation in LT especially VFR during winter season and this is minimum of 4 months. (b) BAA must hire a instructor to fly them. They could spend couple of hundred thousand EUROS for marketing, millions on FFS however they cant spend any single cent on instructors which are keystone of the flight training.
Last edited by uberfly; 2nd Dec 2018 at 15:14. Reason: correction
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The training managers focus more on posting pictures and videos from the office on facebook and instagram instead of trying to solve problems which students have. This is mainly because people with 0 or close to 0 experience in aviation and organization are assigned to such positions. Best example is when a girl from the front desk got promoted to a training manager (a training manager of a flight school).... Such things happen only in BAA..... I mean maybe she is a nice person, but totally not for such position considering the fact that she doesn't know to say hello when you enter the office and starts laughing in your face as soon as you ask more than 1 question.
The fastest way to contact is to chat with them on facebook. Sounds very professional...
There are many s*x stories between the administration girls and the students.
What kind of serious school does that?
If you leave before, you have to pay 35.000€ minus what has been taken from your salary.
If you stay 4 years, they transfer to you 10.000€.
You can easily guess that western guys will want to move out before the 4 years so the Type Rating would cost 35.000€.
Last edited by Dukaster; 3rd Dec 2018 at 13:09.
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To all BAA Training current and future pilots,
Reacting to the current situation at our Ab Initio school, we apologize for inconveniences that we have caused you.
With the growing student number at our Ab Initio school, we have added 4 additional aircraft to our fleet and a flight base in Spain in order to extend our training capabilities. Nevertheless the number of force majeure situations that appeared during few past months left us with struggles to replan flight training schedule accordingly. We acknowledge facing longer delays of flight training than initially planned for approximately 14% of our current students.
Understanding the seriousness of the issue we have done a set of steps in order to change the situation and get back to the normal flight training schedule.
We are:
Reacting to the current situation at our Ab Initio school, we apologize for inconveniences that we have caused you.
With the growing student number at our Ab Initio school, we have added 4 additional aircraft to our fleet and a flight base in Spain in order to extend our training capabilities. Nevertheless the number of force majeure situations that appeared during few past months left us with struggles to replan flight training schedule accordingly. We acknowledge facing longer delays of flight training than initially planned for approximately 14% of our current students.
Understanding the seriousness of the issue we have done a set of steps in order to change the situation and get back to the normal flight training schedule.
We are:
- undergoing the selection processes for multi-engine and single-engine IRF and VFR instructors to join our team in December, January and February
- closing a purchase process for an additional Cessna 172 to join our fleet as we speak
- negotiating the purchase for one more Cessna 172 to be added in spring
- ready to transfer Tecnam 2006: as soon as the weather will allow the aircraft will depart from Vilnius to Lleida
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There are some things that I can’t still believe and understand.
First: Maybe instead of apologize to us, try to think in advance. You had more than one year to calculate how many aircraft would be needed in order to provide every single student smoothe, fluent, efficient, effective and proper training. Was it so hard to calculate that 4 C172 would be too few for 40 and even more students simultaneously? Well, aparently everyone can see that this basic maths was too hard for you. Furthermore, the number of students is growing month by month. You need to offer something in return, not only sitting and checking the income.
Second: You wrote that you are hiring instructors for upcoming year (december, January, february). Do you know maybe where have previous instructors gone? If you don’t, then I’ll enlighten your mind: they have just quit their job. If you don’t know why they have done that, then let me explain you why: deteriorated working conditions. The salary has decreased. Instead of trying to keep them in company by increasing salaries a bit, you have just let them go. Now, because of your greed, we as the students are struggling with lack of instructors, which equals to lack of flying and sending home the students that were supposed to start flying in Spain. Another problem is that you don’t even help your own employees in Spain finding any flat etc. So please tell me how is that possible in such „honoured” company with so many positive opinions? Allegedly, you are the best flight academy right after Lufthansa. That ranking made by your parent company explains everything.
Among us, the students, there are some guys that were leading and are still leading their own business and trust me, if you don’t have anyone that could organize that massive mess at the management department, then just ask some of us. We will find a solution, it is not hard, you just need to have good ability of logical thinking in advance. I can’t find that feature among your management workers. You need to keep in mind that we are not only the cash provider. We are the customers, we expect that goods, that you’ll sell us, will be good. And now you are selling us nothing more than empty promises. The only thing we can be sure is DELAY and the answer „we don’t know’’. When it comes to pay next instalments, we receive email everyday, but when we expect some answer to our questions from you, you have a problem to give us logical reply.
Dear BAA, we are not stupid, we know that very bad things happen inside the school, we speak with instructors, other students and so on. So please stop blurring our eyes. I don’t think that your are providing us efficient training. More than 4 months break at our initial stage of flying, I don’t think it’s good.
„big enough to offer large capabilities, close enough for personal care” that’s the slogan at the bottom of every page of your notebooks, that you are giving to students. Well, don’t you think that it’s time to change that slogan? You are not big enough to offer large capabilities AT ALL.
I know that the IFR student pilots in Spain have still less that 20 hours each, even though there are just few of them. The rest is sitting at home and waiting till the first group will finish. BAA, why did they do barely 20 hours in more that 2 months? Can we expect any answer from you?
Students and instructors are complaining a lot about that school and don’t recommend it to anyone. That means that the problem lies within the company.
So to sum up, instead of hiring hundreds of workers for useless stuff, maybe it’s time to focus more on students, who provide you huge income and instructors, that will ensure you effective students rotation. Otherwise I can’t see any reasonable solution. You’ll go down one day thanks to your own greed. So far I can honestly say, I wouldn't recommend anyone even to think about joining that school
First: Maybe instead of apologize to us, try to think in advance. You had more than one year to calculate how many aircraft would be needed in order to provide every single student smoothe, fluent, efficient, effective and proper training. Was it so hard to calculate that 4 C172 would be too few for 40 and even more students simultaneously? Well, aparently everyone can see that this basic maths was too hard for you. Furthermore, the number of students is growing month by month. You need to offer something in return, not only sitting and checking the income.
Second: You wrote that you are hiring instructors for upcoming year (december, January, february). Do you know maybe where have previous instructors gone? If you don’t, then I’ll enlighten your mind: they have just quit their job. If you don’t know why they have done that, then let me explain you why: deteriorated working conditions. The salary has decreased. Instead of trying to keep them in company by increasing salaries a bit, you have just let them go. Now, because of your greed, we as the students are struggling with lack of instructors, which equals to lack of flying and sending home the students that were supposed to start flying in Spain. Another problem is that you don’t even help your own employees in Spain finding any flat etc. So please tell me how is that possible in such „honoured” company with so many positive opinions? Allegedly, you are the best flight academy right after Lufthansa. That ranking made by your parent company explains everything.
Among us, the students, there are some guys that were leading and are still leading their own business and trust me, if you don’t have anyone that could organize that massive mess at the management department, then just ask some of us. We will find a solution, it is not hard, you just need to have good ability of logical thinking in advance. I can’t find that feature among your management workers. You need to keep in mind that we are not only the cash provider. We are the customers, we expect that goods, that you’ll sell us, will be good. And now you are selling us nothing more than empty promises. The only thing we can be sure is DELAY and the answer „we don’t know’’. When it comes to pay next instalments, we receive email everyday, but when we expect some answer to our questions from you, you have a problem to give us logical reply.
Dear BAA, we are not stupid, we know that very bad things happen inside the school, we speak with instructors, other students and so on. So please stop blurring our eyes. I don’t think that your are providing us efficient training. More than 4 months break at our initial stage of flying, I don’t think it’s good.
„big enough to offer large capabilities, close enough for personal care” that’s the slogan at the bottom of every page of your notebooks, that you are giving to students. Well, don’t you think that it’s time to change that slogan? You are not big enough to offer large capabilities AT ALL.
I know that the IFR student pilots in Spain have still less that 20 hours each, even though there are just few of them. The rest is sitting at home and waiting till the first group will finish. BAA, why did they do barely 20 hours in more that 2 months? Can we expect any answer from you?
Students and instructors are complaining a lot about that school and don’t recommend it to anyone. That means that the problem lies within the company.
So to sum up, instead of hiring hundreds of workers for useless stuff, maybe it’s time to focus more on students, who provide you huge income and instructors, that will ensure you effective students rotation. Otherwise I can’t see any reasonable solution. You’ll go down one day thanks to your own greed. So far I can honestly say, I wouldn't recommend anyone even to think about joining that school
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Well well well...
Look who's going out of the wood when some negative feedbacks pop up.
The marketing & communications department is really efficient, as I wrote in my post
))
Here you can't ban me, huh?!
The delays started in summer 2017, 16 months ago.
At that time, the VFR season was not finished for many of your students, some of them barely did 30 hours in 4 months.
More than half of the students didn't finish the VFR in 4 months.
As a total, the VFR part was done in 6 months...80 hours (13 hours per month !).
You are not a professional flying school, you are an amateur flying club.
So it's not about "the current situation", it's a very long term situation that you chose to ignore.
Today, you suffer the consequences
...or not. You'll get your salary anyway.
I'm going to make a translation here for the readers who are not insiders or former students of BAA :
- "The growing number of students" started in winter 2016-2017, 2 years ago. It's not a new phenomenon. It's been 2 years !
In 2016, you took one class of 10ish people in October, 10ish people in december, in 2017 25 people in february, and so on...without increasing the fleet, and now you are surprisingly in a panic situation?
You must be kidding.
- "Force majeur situations" are about extreme weather, unexpected closure of the airport, etc... Not about a lack of airplanes because the school decided to save money on the fleet!
Even if there is a crash, you were so greedy that you didn't have any enough back-up planes, like all any schools have.
- 14% is a lie. Students of all stages are delayed.
The multi-engine students are waiting for 2 months so far, and they have to wait until january to finish their flight training, they are not even sure to make it before the end of the contract. Their training will finish 24 months after starting. In other schools, it takes 16 months.
The IFR students are sent home until minimum end of February (some of them finished VFR in...September!!)
The VFR students don't fly as planned. Of course, there's half of the VFR fleet available. Fog appears in Lleida, winter begins.
It's a huge mess. You should tell the truth to your students and the people out there.
You didn't even plan how many instructors available you will have in the school for the upcoming months?
You can't make your work and study how many aircrafts you can fly, how many students you must train, how many instructors per students?
Basic calculations... you are not even able to do them. Remember your poor excel file you showed in spring, that was a total lie.
Same story as in 2017. You promised changes, you promised a bigger fleet, you promised a smooth training.
Nothing of those happened.
You shouldn't buy one more Cessna. You should double or triple your fleet !!!
How come CTC has 43 C172 and you have 6 poor flying C172 ???
FTE has 20 IFR Warriors. You have 6 IFR planes available.
Look how the students are stuck and desperate to fly !!
You really live on another planet.
Then how do you explain that the next group starting the multi-engine is planned for the 7th of January?
The multi is just not ready. And you have no idea when it will be for practical flying in Spain.
I just checked, Air Bartolini has 3 P2006. You have 1 and maybe soon 2. And that school is way smaller than you.
CTC has 17 multi-engines ! You have 1 and maybe soon 2.
European Flight Training has 14 ! You have 1 and maybe soon 2.
Should I continue?
The basic organisation is not even performed.
I should also add that the school (which includes the flights) closes 2 weeks for holidays.
Absolutely all the flying students are enduring a huge delay, BAA might not even be able to finish the students before the end of the student contracts.... but BAA closes 2 weeks for Christmas !
Go work in a regular company, you will get back to work the 2nd of January, and some people work during the christmas week.
Force majeure you said ? The delays are big? THEN GO WORK DURING HOLIDAYS !
Your team just plays pool and make social network pictures. All your system is about making Youtube videos by beginner students in a 737, roadshows, events for promotion of your school. The team seems to realise only now that the mess is huge.
Seriously?
You should fire all the cylinders now, make simple calculations about the number of airplanes/students/FI, make a plan, buy planes, hire enough FI and pay them properly, so as they don't escape like they all do.
Do.
Your.
Job.
Look who's going out of the wood when some negative feedbacks pop up.
The marketing & communications department is really efficient, as I wrote in my post
))Here you can't ban me, huh?!
At that time, the VFR season was not finished for many of your students, some of them barely did 30 hours in 4 months.
More than half of the students didn't finish the VFR in 4 months.
As a total, the VFR part was done in 6 months...80 hours (13 hours per month !).
You are not a professional flying school, you are an amateur flying club.
So it's not about "the current situation", it's a very long term situation that you chose to ignore.
Today, you suffer the consequences
...or not. You'll get your salary anyway.
With the growing student number at our Ab Initio school, we have added 4 additional aircraft to our fleet and a flight base in Spain in order to extend our training capabilities. Nevertheless the number of force majeure situations that appeared during few past months left us with struggles to replan flight training schedule accordingly. We acknowledge facing longer delays of flight training than initially planned for approximately 14% of our current students.
- "The growing number of students" started in winter 2016-2017, 2 years ago. It's not a new phenomenon. It's been 2 years !
In 2016, you took one class of 10ish people in October, 10ish people in december, in 2017 25 people in february, and so on...without increasing the fleet, and now you are surprisingly in a panic situation?
You must be kidding.
- "Force majeur situations" are about extreme weather, unexpected closure of the airport, etc... Not about a lack of airplanes because the school decided to save money on the fleet!
Even if there is a crash, you were so greedy that you didn't have any enough back-up planes, like all any schools have.
- 14% is a lie. Students of all stages are delayed.
The multi-engine students are waiting for 2 months so far, and they have to wait until january to finish their flight training, they are not even sure to make it before the end of the contract. Their training will finish 24 months after starting. In other schools, it takes 16 months.
The IFR students are sent home until minimum end of February (some of them finished VFR in...September!!)
The VFR students don't fly as planned. Of course, there's half of the VFR fleet available. Fog appears in Lleida, winter begins.
It's a huge mess. You should tell the truth to your students and the people out there.
We are:
- undergoing the selection processes for multi-engine and single-engine IRF and VFR instructors to join our team in December, January and February
- closing a purchase process for an additional Cessna 172 to join our fleet as we speak
- negotiating the purchase for one more Cessna 172 to be added in spring
You can't make your work and study how many aircrafts you can fly, how many students you must train, how many instructors per students?
Basic calculations... you are not even able to do them. Remember your poor excel file you showed in spring, that was a total lie.
Same story as in 2017. You promised changes, you promised a bigger fleet, you promised a smooth training.
Nothing of those happened.
You shouldn't buy one more Cessna. You should double or triple your fleet !!!
How come CTC has 43 C172 and you have 6 poor flying C172 ???
FTE has 20 IFR Warriors. You have 6 IFR planes available.
Look how the students are stuck and desperate to fly !!
You really live on another planet.
The multi is just not ready. And you have no idea when it will be for practical flying in Spain.
I just checked, Air Bartolini has 3 P2006. You have 1 and maybe soon 2. And that school is way smaller than you.
CTC has 17 multi-engines ! You have 1 and maybe soon 2.
European Flight Training has 14 ! You have 1 and maybe soon 2.
Should I continue?
I should also add that the school (which includes the flights) closes 2 weeks for holidays.
Absolutely all the flying students are enduring a huge delay, BAA might not even be able to finish the students before the end of the student contracts.... but BAA closes 2 weeks for Christmas !
Go work in a regular company, you will get back to work the 2nd of January, and some people work during the christmas week.
Force majeure you said ? The delays are big? THEN GO WORK DURING HOLIDAYS !
Your team just plays pool and make social network pictures. All your system is about making Youtube videos by beginner students in a 737, roadshows, events for promotion of your school. The team seems to realise only now that the mess is huge.
Seriously?
You should fire all the cylinders now, make simple calculations about the number of airplanes/students/FI, make a plan, buy planes, hire enough FI and pay them properly, so as they don't escape like they all do.
Do.
Your.
Job.
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Actually the post by "BAATraining" is just a copy-paste of the mail the students received yesterday.
You can't even explain yourself on a students & pilots forum.
You are just amateurs.
An amateur school which has no idea how to run a flight school.
You can't even explain yourself on a students & pilots forum.
You are just amateurs.
An amateur school which has no idea how to run a flight school.
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@tecnamflyer
I just come to a conclusion about these numbers below.
2017 Feb groups have experienced delays of around 4/5 months.
- 2017 June group has experienced delays of about 6/7 months (are people in that class who finished VFR in June 2018 now have been told their IFR will be January 2019).
- 2017 September group has delays again of 6 months minimum (likely to increase because the current progress of IFR students ahead of them in Spain is very slow).
- 2017 October group has delays of about 7/8 months (People in this class finished VFR in September and latest news is they will not go to Spain at all, but start IFR in March/April back in Lithuania)
Looking from financial side of the window;
Considering the delay of 6 months ATPL integrated can be completed in any other training organization in around 16-18 months. Most of the students choose BAA because hoping to receive OK-ish training at reasonable price and plus airline partners (where I want to mention one more time expect Wizzair, rest of the airline partners are just make no sense to choose BAA) . However, if one finished training 6 months earlier, during this 6 months roughly inexperienced pilot can earn around 3k net. In addition, life expenses in that wasted time lets say on average 800 Euros in Lithuania -if you live somewhere this could of course get higher-. Therefore (6*3000) + (6*800) = 22.800 Euros. In my opinion this is the money students lost due to delays and all these happenings. Simply adding onto training cost; 72K +23K= 95K anyone considering to choose BAA should think about these numbers and make decision accordingly. Close to that amount you can even have training including accommodation and 3 course meal provided in some schools.
At the end of the day, simple student' training total cost, including all the life expenses will be as much as top notch schools such as CAE, L3 or FTE. BAA is just a random school. Without Wizzair partnership they wouldn't enroll more than 30-35 independent students per year.
I just come to a conclusion about these numbers below.
2017 Feb groups have experienced delays of around 4/5 months.
- 2017 June group has experienced delays of about 6/7 months (are people in that class who finished VFR in June 2018 now have been told their IFR will be January 2019).
- 2017 September group has delays again of 6 months minimum (likely to increase because the current progress of IFR students ahead of them in Spain is very slow).
- 2017 October group has delays of about 7/8 months (People in this class finished VFR in September and latest news is they will not go to Spain at all, but start IFR in March/April back in Lithuania)
Looking from financial side of the window;
Considering the delay of 6 months ATPL integrated can be completed in any other training organization in around 16-18 months. Most of the students choose BAA because hoping to receive OK-ish training at reasonable price and plus airline partners (where I want to mention one more time expect Wizzair, rest of the airline partners are just make no sense to choose BAA) . However, if one finished training 6 months earlier, during this 6 months roughly inexperienced pilot can earn around 3k net. In addition, life expenses in that wasted time lets say on average 800 Euros in Lithuania -if you live somewhere this could of course get higher-. Therefore (6*3000) + (6*800) = 22.800 Euros. In my opinion this is the money students lost due to delays and all these happenings. Simply adding onto training cost; 72K +23K= 95K anyone considering to choose BAA should think about these numbers and make decision accordingly. Close to that amount you can even have training including accommodation and 3 course meal provided in some schools.
At the end of the day, simple student' training total cost, including all the life expenses will be as much as top notch schools such as CAE, L3 or FTE. BAA is just a random school. Without Wizzair partnership they wouldn't enroll more than 30-35 independent students per year.
Last edited by uberfly; 5th Dec 2018 at 13:59. Reason: correction
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To all BAA Training current and future pilots,
Reacting to the current situation at our Ab Initio school, we apologize for inconveniences that we have caused you.
With the growing student number at our Ab Initio school, we have added 4 additional aircraft to our fleet and a flight base in Spain in order to extend our training capabilities. Nevertheless the number of force majeure situations that appeared during few past months left us with struggles to replan flight training schedule accordingly.
Reacting to the current situation at our Ab Initio school, we apologize for inconveniences that we have caused you.
With the growing student number at our Ab Initio school, we have added 4 additional aircraft to our fleet and a flight base in Spain in order to extend our training capabilities. Nevertheless the number of force majeure situations that appeared during few past months left us with struggles to replan flight training schedule accordingly.
Understanding the seriousness of the issue we have done a set of steps in order to change the situation and get back to the normal flight training schedule.
We are:
We are:
- undergoing the selection processes for multi-engine and single-engine IRF and VFR instructors to join our team in December, January and February
In my opinion, you are probably THE worst institution in aviation history.
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Before those so-called "cadet programs", that school was a random unknown school.
It was like a vacation club, rich kids driving Porsche Cayenne or the last BMW 6, quiet heaven where the pressure didn't exist.
Things have changed, the tills are full, but the holiday camp organisation remains the same.
Party is over. Go back to work!
I don't know what the Airlines think about getting students 6 months after the promized time.
Any Airline would be very upset to get their cadets with such a delay.
In the long term, those airlines would be totally right to break the contract with BAA, as the school is not even able to provide their new f/o in a reasonable time.
So be extremely careful about that school. Who knows what can happen soon...
It was like a vacation club, rich kids driving Porsche Cayenne or the last BMW 6, quiet heaven where the pressure didn't exist.
Things have changed, the tills are full, but the holiday camp organisation remains the same.
Party is over. Go back to work!
I don't know what the Airlines think about getting students 6 months after the promized time.
Any Airline would be very upset to get their cadets with such a delay.
In the long term, those airlines would be totally right to break the contract with BAA, as the school is not even able to provide their new f/o in a reasonable time.
So be extremely careful about that school. Who knows what can happen soon...
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Instead of going back to your present students to offer solutions or to get their opinion about possible future planning alternatives, you have just registered a new account here today to post your message on an open forum.
Even this act alone shows that your objective is to do some marketing towards 'future potential pilots'.
You people are incompetent in every aspect of aviation business.
Even this act alone shows that your objective is to do some marketing towards 'future potential pilots'.
You people are incompetent in every aspect of aviation business.
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Students are so desperate that they created a Facebook group to make fun of the school.
Go check it out, type Baltic Aviation Academy memes on Facebook you'll have some fun for the evening
Go check it out, type Baltic Aviation Academy memes on Facebook you'll have some fun for the evening
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Many things that are going down at BAA are basically ripped straight out of the Soviet playbooks: misinformation, keeping people in the dark, exerting psychological pressure and a clear lack of anything that could somehow be construed as a "customer friendly mentality" (oh, wait, no, the people shelling out tens of thousands of euros to attend a private flight school are not "customers" apparently...).
Mix all of this goodness with a fresh dose of newly imported capitalist greed and you've got one hell of a combination.
I could write an entire book about all the things there that it defies the apparent fact that this is a training organization operating under an EASA license. Clearly someone, somewhere, made a terrible mistake or ten.
Of course, many of their transgressions can surely be forgiven. Clearly they would pass any and all audits that might be conducted in the future.
The barely competent ground school instructors, some of whom speak English at a level that is far removed from even ICAO 4 and mostly play YouTube videos because "this subject is quite complicated"? Forgiven.
Making up nonsensical rules about "conduct at school" and exerting psychological pressure on the student body wherever possible? Forgiven.
Cutting corners to the absolute maximum extent possible ("Oh, you will have to pay for those epaulettes!"), singling out malcontents and trying to milk the current flood of students as much as possible before that house of cards they have created for themselves inevitably collapses? Forgiven?
Things are bad, there is no sugar-coating it. The idea to move operations to Lleida over the winter was so poorly thought through that it is hard to imagine what kind of process they must have followed as far as decision-making is concerned.
Fact is: winter weather in Lleida is terrible. The current maintenance solution is untenable. Operational conduct and planning are okay at the best of times and disastrous at the worst. The fog is all-encompassing and barely any flying will happen.
Add to that the fact that it is not a nice place to stay. Pretty much no one speaks English, few people are willing to rent to foreigners and especially not on short notice.
It goes without saying that training there is a major expense for many students with no help whatsoever provided by BAA. Let's not forget that all current students signed contracts for training in Lithuania. Nowhere does it mention having to move countries again. For many, this has been a giant hassle after having brought all of their ducks in a row in Lithuania, particularly for non-Europeans (think of residency, permits, etc.).
The biggest joke was that, though rumors had existed that a move to Spain was in the cards, concrete information was withheld for AS LONG AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Why did they do this? What did they stand to gain from leaving people in the dark and preventing them from preparing a move to the other end of Europe? We shall never know.
Competent instructors have been leaving in droves. No wonder, they are just as shafted as the student body, if not worse. BAA provides little support to them, in addition to simply appalling working conditions and laughable remuneration. Their efforts to replace these instructors will do nothing but attract the dregs of the industry. Surely another point in favour of training quality and flight safety.
It seems that every step of the way the decisions they make only serve to shoot themselves in the foot with additional bullets. When profits skyrocketed due to influx of students, it would have been prudent to increase instructor remuneration to a level that resembles a living wage. It would have been prudent to invest in additional FNPTs in Vilnius, not simulators in Vietnam. It would have been most prudent to invest in more, desperately needed aircraft (and potentially aircraft that are actually suitable for dual seat training operations and not constantly bordering on or exceeding MTOW).
And, finally, it would have been prudent to select a base for winter operations after doing PROPER RESEARCH into the operating conditions there (it's also nice that aircraft currently cannot be maintained on site but have to be ferried to SABADELL) and not to select a base where the fog is famous enough to warrant status as a literal tourist attraction, though in all honesty, a winter base may not even have been necessary, if proper amounts of aircraft were available in Kaunas and training was scheduled in a more sensible manner in the first place...as such, the Lleida "expedition" resembles the era of imperialism leading up to WW1: it is BAA's "Place in the Sun" - or rather "Place in the Fog".
Let's not get into the, really quite irrelevant, topic of maintenance and safety, shall we? After all, this is clearly not a safety-critical industry...been there, done that. We even have our very own crash, news coverage and all. Isn't that lovely?
I wish that one day one of the higher-ups will blow the whistle on this whole outfit and release an autobiography laying out this charade in full detail. It could serve as study material for everyone from economists to social scientists - and sadly as cautionary tale for the entire aviation industry.
All this is just scratching the tip of an absolutely immense underwater iceberg of lies and incompetence. If you've not already pledged your soul and parent's savings to this band of merry fools, I advise you to stay as far away as possible. Though, do visit Lithuania if you get the chance, it truly is a magical place when you're not spending it at Dariaus ir Gireno gatvé.
Mix all of this goodness with a fresh dose of newly imported capitalist greed and you've got one hell of a combination.
I could write an entire book about all the things there that it defies the apparent fact that this is a training organization operating under an EASA license. Clearly someone, somewhere, made a terrible mistake or ten.
Of course, many of their transgressions can surely be forgiven. Clearly they would pass any and all audits that might be conducted in the future.
The barely competent ground school instructors, some of whom speak English at a level that is far removed from even ICAO 4 and mostly play YouTube videos because "this subject is quite complicated"? Forgiven.
Making up nonsensical rules about "conduct at school" and exerting psychological pressure on the student body wherever possible? Forgiven.
Cutting corners to the absolute maximum extent possible ("Oh, you will have to pay for those epaulettes!"), singling out malcontents and trying to milk the current flood of students as much as possible before that house of cards they have created for themselves inevitably collapses? Forgiven?
Things are bad, there is no sugar-coating it. The idea to move operations to Lleida over the winter was so poorly thought through that it is hard to imagine what kind of process they must have followed as far as decision-making is concerned.
Fact is: winter weather in Lleida is terrible. The current maintenance solution is untenable. Operational conduct and planning are okay at the best of times and disastrous at the worst. The fog is all-encompassing and barely any flying will happen.
Add to that the fact that it is not a nice place to stay. Pretty much no one speaks English, few people are willing to rent to foreigners and especially not on short notice.
It goes without saying that training there is a major expense for many students with no help whatsoever provided by BAA. Let's not forget that all current students signed contracts for training in Lithuania. Nowhere does it mention having to move countries again. For many, this has been a giant hassle after having brought all of their ducks in a row in Lithuania, particularly for non-Europeans (think of residency, permits, etc.).
The biggest joke was that, though rumors had existed that a move to Spain was in the cards, concrete information was withheld for AS LONG AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Why did they do this? What did they stand to gain from leaving people in the dark and preventing them from preparing a move to the other end of Europe? We shall never know.
Competent instructors have been leaving in droves. No wonder, they are just as shafted as the student body, if not worse. BAA provides little support to them, in addition to simply appalling working conditions and laughable remuneration. Their efforts to replace these instructors will do nothing but attract the dregs of the industry. Surely another point in favour of training quality and flight safety.
It seems that every step of the way the decisions they make only serve to shoot themselves in the foot with additional bullets. When profits skyrocketed due to influx of students, it would have been prudent to increase instructor remuneration to a level that resembles a living wage. It would have been prudent to invest in additional FNPTs in Vilnius, not simulators in Vietnam. It would have been most prudent to invest in more, desperately needed aircraft (and potentially aircraft that are actually suitable for dual seat training operations and not constantly bordering on or exceeding MTOW).
And, finally, it would have been prudent to select a base for winter operations after doing PROPER RESEARCH into the operating conditions there (it's also nice that aircraft currently cannot be maintained on site but have to be ferried to SABADELL) and not to select a base where the fog is famous enough to warrant status as a literal tourist attraction, though in all honesty, a winter base may not even have been necessary, if proper amounts of aircraft were available in Kaunas and training was scheduled in a more sensible manner in the first place...as such, the Lleida "expedition" resembles the era of imperialism leading up to WW1: it is BAA's "Place in the Sun" - or rather "Place in the Fog".
Let's not get into the, really quite irrelevant, topic of maintenance and safety, shall we? After all, this is clearly not a safety-critical industry...been there, done that. We even have our very own crash, news coverage and all. Isn't that lovely?
I wish that one day one of the higher-ups will blow the whistle on this whole outfit and release an autobiography laying out this charade in full detail. It could serve as study material for everyone from economists to social scientists - and sadly as cautionary tale for the entire aviation industry.
All this is just scratching the tip of an absolutely immense underwater iceberg of lies and incompetence. If you've not already pledged your soul and parent's savings to this band of merry fools, I advise you to stay as far away as possible. Though, do visit Lithuania if you get the chance, it truly is a magical place when you're not spending it at Dariaus ir Gireno gatvé.
Join Date: Dec 2018
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I wonder if the Wizz Air is familiar with the situation in the school. I am certain that BAA didn't inform them. "Hey WizzAir, we are completely loosing control of the training process of your future pilots." What worries me is how Wizz will react when they see how terrible the situation in the school is. Will they just give up on us? It's not like BAA is the only school with the cadet program.
From the beginning of the ground school the support from the training managers was terrible or let me say 0. They present us with their Baby Dolls with 0 knowledge and think we will be fine with a constant "I don't know". I wonder if they even have interviews for employment in BAA or are the only requirements to be a female and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I remember last December they gave us this fabulous schedule saying IFR will take 1 month. HAHAHAHAHA..... We asked the "I don't know" girl, (you can guess who it is) if it is a mistake in the chart and she said "No, IFR goes fast, It's not that many hours".....
She and every other BAA employee have to understand that we are doing them the favor by going to this school, not the opposite way. We the students are the clients who are paying a large amount of money, and by this paying their salaries. So they should stop treating us like we are in a public school and should stop rolling eyes when we ask questions.
I am not even going to mention how each sales manager imposes different contract rules to their students. Basically some students have 1 year to pay for the training others have more, others have less.
I am also not going to mention how after complaining about this chaos, the Ab Initio director told me to go to another school if I don't like it here. Very "professional" dude who aside of being famous for "knowing everything" actually tried to make a positive difference but wasn't liked by any of Ab Initio staff because he actually expected them to work and earn their salary. Not sit in the office and post instagram stories...
It shouldn't be mentioned as well that instructors threw one another under the bus this past flying season. Making reports about one another and so on. Also they are instructed by BAA to have 30min turnaround between each flight with a student. So you can imagine how the briefings and debriefings looked like. Sadly for most of the instructors they were nonexistent.
Only few brave instructors decided to actually teach their students in a proper way!
Some of the guys made it to the final check in the VFR stage without knowing that there is an entry procedure for an Aerodrome they have flown to many times in their 80h vfr training. This is not the mistake of student but the instructor who let him fly in the first place. But this is what happens when you have instructors who sleep, play games and talk on the phones, and this is not only during lesson flights but also check flights! Yes check flights! Then again you have students who prefer these kind of instructors......
I personalty told 7 people who were considering BAA to run away without looking back. That's 7x72k=504 k... Potentially half a mil EUR. Surely I am not the only one who is giving this advice. Maybe this way they will actually understand that the way they treat us will have consequences.
From the beginning of the ground school the support from the training managers was terrible or let me say 0. They present us with their Baby Dolls with 0 knowledge and think we will be fine with a constant "I don't know". I wonder if they even have interviews for employment in BAA or are the only requirements to be a female and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I remember last December they gave us this fabulous schedule saying IFR will take 1 month. HAHAHAHAHA..... We asked the "I don't know" girl, (you can guess who it is) if it is a mistake in the chart and she said "No, IFR goes fast, It's not that many hours".....
She and every other BAA employee have to understand that we are doing them the favor by going to this school, not the opposite way. We the students are the clients who are paying a large amount of money, and by this paying their salaries. So they should stop treating us like we are in a public school and should stop rolling eyes when we ask questions.
I am not even going to mention how each sales manager imposes different contract rules to their students. Basically some students have 1 year to pay for the training others have more, others have less.
I am also not going to mention how after complaining about this chaos, the Ab Initio director told me to go to another school if I don't like it here. Very "professional" dude who aside of being famous for "knowing everything" actually tried to make a positive difference but wasn't liked by any of Ab Initio staff because he actually expected them to work and earn their salary. Not sit in the office and post instagram stories...
It shouldn't be mentioned as well that instructors threw one another under the bus this past flying season. Making reports about one another and so on. Also they are instructed by BAA to have 30min turnaround between each flight with a student. So you can imagine how the briefings and debriefings looked like. Sadly for most of the instructors they were nonexistent.
Only few brave instructors decided to actually teach their students in a proper way!
Some of the guys made it to the final check in the VFR stage without knowing that there is an entry procedure for an Aerodrome they have flown to many times in their 80h vfr training. This is not the mistake of student but the instructor who let him fly in the first place. But this is what happens when you have instructors who sleep, play games and talk on the phones, and this is not only during lesson flights but also check flights! Yes check flights! Then again you have students who prefer these kind of instructors......
I personalty told 7 people who were considering BAA to run away without looking back. That's 7x72k=504 k... Potentially half a mil EUR. Surely I am not the only one who is giving this advice. Maybe this way they will actually understand that the way they treat us will have consequences.
Join Date: Dec 2018
Location: Slovakia
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This feedback is mostly for the people who are thinking to join this organization, for us who are already there it won't solve any problem or give us any money back. So if you are one of the potential ,,future pilots" please read it carefully.
First of all, at the beginning you will get a beautiful impression from THE SALES DEPARTMENT. The one and only thing which they know how to do is marketing and telling you fairytales - but this fairytale is not from the Disney and unfortunately doesn't have happy ending.
They will give you all the information for joining and assessment process plus the payment which is the crucial part for them.
Facilities are beautiful as Instagram and Facebook pictures, but thats it. Don't expect nothing else.
Even the contract is written only for them not for you! (You have to, You must, but BAA has any obligations towards you)
So if you are considering also another school which is more expensive - maybe at the end its the same price. (compared to L3 academy) Because not all things which look cheap at the beginning are cheap at the end. Be ready, you will have to pay for accommodation and travel expenses - which is not a big deal, unless you have to move 3 times in a year and nobody is willing to rent apartment for less then year. (bye bye deposits ).
Regarding traveling, most of the time you get the final information in a good case one week before the flight so you can imagine also the price for the flight ticket.
Now more about the quality. I would say it with one sentence - One day you are working at the front desk and the next day you are in management.
Don't expect any proactive approach from management unless it's regarding your payments.
I just wonder how the airlines signed the contract with this organization, maybe they used also the beautiful PowerPoint presentations for them as well and didn't show them the truth.
I am also happy for the instructors, who are so brave and still providing perfect service although they are treated as a ****. Big respect for them but majority of them already left. I think it's very common in this facility to be arrogant to get a job in a management and the worst thing, the will never admit - they made a mistake. Most of the time they will make you to look like a dumb person who is unable to count 1 to 10. Maybe one day we will post also Name and Shame to know who you should avoid in your future and give them the harder feedback!
I think majority of the things regarding the number of aircrafts and schedule have been posted here before, but I just want to raise my voice and tell you - IT IS ALL THE TRUTH. Maybe this kind of feedback will bring this organization back to reality and give them wake up call.
For the rest of the guys and girls who finally woke up from #feelingblessed #futurpilot #pilottobe #pilotlife good luck and stay strong, although with the last money we have.
And if you find those few selected pilots from this organization don't believe everything what is written on ,,official" social medias.
Oh and also something which you get for your money or lets say for ,,free."
Demotivation and Frustration
First of all, at the beginning you will get a beautiful impression from THE SALES DEPARTMENT. The one and only thing which they know how to do is marketing and telling you fairytales - but this fairytale is not from the Disney and unfortunately doesn't have happy ending.
They will give you all the information for joining and assessment process plus the payment which is the crucial part for them.
Facilities are beautiful as Instagram and Facebook pictures, but thats it. Don't expect nothing else.
Even the contract is written only for them not for you! (You have to, You must, but BAA has any obligations towards you)
So if you are considering also another school which is more expensive - maybe at the end its the same price. (compared to L3 academy) Because not all things which look cheap at the beginning are cheap at the end. Be ready, you will have to pay for accommodation and travel expenses - which is not a big deal, unless you have to move 3 times in a year and nobody is willing to rent apartment for less then year. (bye bye deposits ).
Regarding traveling, most of the time you get the final information in a good case one week before the flight so you can imagine also the price for the flight ticket.
Now more about the quality. I would say it with one sentence - One day you are working at the front desk and the next day you are in management.
Don't expect any proactive approach from management unless it's regarding your payments.
I just wonder how the airlines signed the contract with this organization, maybe they used also the beautiful PowerPoint presentations for them as well and didn't show them the truth.
I am also happy for the instructors, who are so brave and still providing perfect service although they are treated as a ****. Big respect for them but majority of them already left. I think it's very common in this facility to be arrogant to get a job in a management and the worst thing, the will never admit - they made a mistake. Most of the time they will make you to look like a dumb person who is unable to count 1 to 10. Maybe one day we will post also Name and Shame to know who you should avoid in your future and give them the harder feedback!
I think majority of the things regarding the number of aircrafts and schedule have been posted here before, but I just want to raise my voice and tell you - IT IS ALL THE TRUTH. Maybe this kind of feedback will bring this organization back to reality and give them wake up call.
For the rest of the guys and girls who finally woke up from #feelingblessed #futurpilot #pilottobe #pilotlife good luck and stay strong, although with the last money we have.
And if you find those few selected pilots from this organization don't believe everything what is written on ,,official" social medias.
Oh and also something which you get for your money or lets say for ,,free."
Demotivation and Frustration
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Under the Sun
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GreenYoda;
They are planning to address the students tomorrow with the usual “all is good. social media posts are lies. we are buying 200 more planes and hiring 500 instructors” type of speeches. Maybe all the hidden issues should be spoken then?!?[/left]
They are planning to address the students tomorrow with the usual “all is good. social media posts are lies. we are buying 200 more planes and hiring 500 instructors” type of speeches. Maybe all the hidden issues should be spoken then?!?[/left]
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: In the skies
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Wow, that has been some shocking read for me.. I suspected there might be some internal mess but I didn't think it was _that_ bad! Good thing that I didn't pull the trigger to pick up studies at BAA, although it was just minutes before making the positive decision (school being just a few km from my home is quite convenient thing...). Thanks guys for sharing the reality from the inside!
Having said that, maybe someone could give some reference to a decent flight school in Poland (as metnioned above)? Anything will work - name of the school, their site, etc...
Thanks!
Having said that, maybe someone could give some reference to a decent flight school in Poland (as metnioned above)? Anything will work - name of the school, their site, etc...
Thanks!
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: The Netherlands
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Dear Ladies & Gents,
Sorry to read all this negative news concerning BAA.
There is one thing I would like to say.
I got hired by BAA as a flight instructor 2 months ago. I went to Lleida in November, but unfortunately due to unforeseen problems back home, I had to put in my resignation.
I only stayed in Lleida for 5 days. What I can say is that the salary offered by BAA was above aviation flight instructor standards. I was making half of what BAA offered when I was with L3 in Portugal.
I would also like to mention that BAA HR Office treated me very well, when I had to go back home again after such a short period. So no complaints there either.
Just my 2 cents....
I wish all BAA students lots of luck with their future training !
Happy holidays to everyone !
Your not much, if you ain`t Dutch !
Sorry to read all this negative news concerning BAA.
There is one thing I would like to say.
I got hired by BAA as a flight instructor 2 months ago. I went to Lleida in November, but unfortunately due to unforeseen problems back home, I had to put in my resignation.
I only stayed in Lleida for 5 days. What I can say is that the salary offered by BAA was above aviation flight instructor standards. I was making half of what BAA offered when I was with L3 in Portugal.
I would also like to mention that BAA HR Office treated me very well, when I had to go back home again after such a short period. So no complaints there either.
Just my 2 cents....
I wish all BAA students lots of luck with their future training !
Happy holidays to everyone !
Your not much, if you ain`t Dutch !
