Egnatia Aviation Greece
 

Anybody had any knowledge or experience with Egantia Aviation schools in Greece. The course seems to be quite comprehensive which includes all modules required for a JAA fATPL licence such as PPL, Night Qualification, Hours Building, Multi-Engine Rating, ATPL Theory, CPL and IR and the cost quite affordable.

Advice me please!!!! Cos I've to make decision very soon

Hi, read the following threads:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235814

http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive.../t-266377.html

Visit the school before making any decision ;)

:ok:

Dont go anywhere near the place!! PM me for info..

Be careful
 

I called them twice and left messages. Sent them emails but noone came back to me.

Enough said.

I had exactly the same experience. Zero response to voice mails and emails.

well that's expected, the school is a joke, i'm not a student there anymore but i keep in contact with some good friends i made there.

some info from the inside:
they are cutting corners on maintenence, some engineers came once from diamond and grounded all the planes because they had been playing with the numbers to illegaly get more time out the planes!

groundschool is a huge mess, no instructors, students only have groundschool on weekends and monday so someone who works elsewhere can come and teach them some subjects on his days off.

the directors of the company CAN NOT BE TRUSTED full stop. speak to any student there, they will confirm this.

it will be done next week, next week, tomorrow, this afternoon, tomorrow, yea dont worry its ok, tomorrow, sorry we cancelled it because just felt like it, next week, tomorrow, sorry no slot for you, yea we love english peoples money!

oh and there is STILL no internet in the accomodation, and i hear they've even taken it away from inside the school now!

my advice: stay clear of the place, i have spoken to other flight schools in the UK and i have heard many people say things about egnatias bad reputation.

i just hope the current students that are stuck there can get out as soon as they can, i hope that egnatia wont be a black mark on their job applications with its bad reputation.

A rumour has reached my ears that all is not well at Egnatia, especially with their relationship with Diamond.

Sounds like a shambles!! Can anyone confirm the current affairs at Egnatia?

Are VFR flights not restricted to following airways in Greece or is this a myth? If true, how does one train?

Bobby

This is a Myth, you can fly VFR normally in Greece.

EpsilonVaz

Hi there,
Well, I am really surprised how bad things are being said about Egnatia Aviation. I have just come back from the school couple days ago. I did my tour, saw accommodation, talked to instructors, students and manager, flown one of their DA40's and I found it very good school for the price they offer.
With all honesty You will never get "heaven" for lower price, but look; they do have 5 planes as they mention on the website. There should be no worry about maintenance since the school is just setting up its own maintanance facility and they just had an inspection from Authorities couple days ago.
They provide You with Bristol Ground School which is one of the leading in Europe. Accomodation is really nice, furnished and neat; all that You need during Your studies. There are also negative sides about the school, but hey, it is never going to be perfect anywhere. It is the most important for You as a future pilot to get desired and proper pilot education and get ready to take off with Your career and I thing that this is the place which will help You achieve Your goal. As I said, I have just visited school. My first impression wasn't so good, but I stayed there for three days and gradually changed my mind and opinion up to the point that I will start training with them very soon. If You would like to get to know something more about the school, just PM me.

Take Care Pilot:D

Well theres a man you could sell anything too! :}

Sounds like you'll be merely 'putting up' with the place, not something I'd do when you see the quality available at some schools.

Regards

CR

HubiPilot..dont be fooled, I was given a grand tour of Keramoti and shown all those wonderful apartments and told what facilities are on offer etc etc, and then we pulled up outside a sh1thole "and this is where your staying for a couple of days" turned out to be a week then I got moved to a smaller even worse apartment if you could call it that within the same block, no cooking facilities absolute dump of a place, again only for a day or 2, after 4 I packed my bags and went home, saw and heard enough in just over a week there to realise I had made a grave mistake. The accomodation was just the icing on the cake!!

Then tell me guys what do You suggest with 50000Euro in my pocket? It is not easy to make my decision. I am not able to pay for Cabair or Jerez. I have talked to the a guy of my nationality who attends that school and was one of the first students at that school and he presented to me all pros and cons of Egnatia, but I can't go forever in looking for better school where I will be told that there are also negative things as everywhere else. I am confused.....
With all honesty guys I prefer to put all my power that I use for thinking about what school to choose, in my studies. But I understand and appreciate Your comments that make me think about my choice.

With Regards
HubiPilot

^the choice is ultimately yours however i recommend reading the 2 threads linked to above!...

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235814

http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive.../t-266377.html

Hub, if you have that much money , do you have to go integrated ? you could certainly do the modular rouite with that amount at pretty much any provider and , all the arguments aside still come out with a fATPL ?

Hub, like others in this thread I visited the school in question and could probably describe it like you did...to me, it was the little points that didn't add up and the school was still young with no past history so I would've been taking a huge risk in choosing them, thankfully, with their current affairs, my reasoning sort of paid off.

Would you like to train for your IR by flying the same route every day? doing your IR in a super easy aircraft which allows the use of an autopilot? To me, choosing a provider is about the quality of training. Remember, its the past and present students who offer a good indicator on how good the quality is, right now the current students at Egnatia are far from praising them. Its your choice but I would look at the other options available too and make a formed decision (spain, modular uk, america etc etc).

I'd go with Merc 320 SL, Silver with red leather, you'll have change for some nice high octane fuel!

Kind Regards

Rossco

SL not SLK!

Good banter though MP!

Regards

CR

Ditto,

Egnatia started off with a great deal of praise from a number of people, again looking really rather decent on paper. A new fleet of aircraft that from what I've heard were very easy to fly and a dream to use for 'complex' skills tests.
Unfortunately it would appear they have fallen short at a somewhat trivial hurdle, general upkeep and accomodation (as well as teaching staff).
This could be a shame if thats all it is, as it probably wouldnt have taken alot to gain this school some reasonable kudos.

:confused:

Regards

CR

Apparently, they are in need of instructors. I contacted them and didn't even get a reply.

Not the sort of people I would want to work for.

Egnatia
 

I did my PPL at Egnatia but decided not to continue my training there

a little birdie tells me that the last british instructor was sacked on friday for trivial reasons. only greek instructors now, you can seriously forget UK standards.

by the way as a warning to anyone there, if the management find out you said anything bad about egnatia, they take it personally, they will start treating you badly, everything will take a long, long time. oh and you can forget about getting your licence issued within 4 months.

good luck

It's not rocket science guys, if you don't like the place, if they don't treat you right, if they keep breaking promises.....LEAVE.

It's a shame really, looked ike they were really up to a good start.

There still advertising "UK Instructors" on there web site..as well as carefully selected accomodation!!

You get what you pay for!!

If he is head of training why is he based in the UK, if it was me I would have jumped on the first plane to Greece to sort it out.

He is only head of training for a 5 guys..cranfield study material students..
Egnatia have changed over to an online system run by Bristol, therefore no instructors needed, the cranfield guys have been left on the shelf a bit, 1 part time instructor, who has nothing to do with the aviation industry, and no instructor for GNav, Flt Planning, RNav and Met, the guys are teaching themselves..

So that must mean the students now have to fly back to the UK for ground school then?

not sure how it works, they all sit in a classroom glued to pc monitors..they take the exams in greece Athens I think and a new venue also in Greece, as far as I know they dont have to come to UK at all. Certainly never mentioned by the students anyway, the only thing they did mention was cost of sitting ATPL exam euro3.50!! a tad cheaper than Gatwick..

Clearly things cannot be going well if they are having to use distance learning as their groundschool, I would imagine that this is not what the students were promised.
I would endorse what has been said already that there are a number of proven schools in the UK who do not cost the earth. Just for the record I am linked indirectly to one.

Read This!!!! Before Choosing This School
 

Speaking from personal experience and the experience of others I know have attended this school, I would stay well clear!!!
Several areas let this school down; In order; The Management, The Flight school Operations, Lack of Maintainance, The Poor Standard of Training, The treatment and attitude towards the students, and of course Accomodation.

The Management are responsible for all of the problems in the school as these problems are nearly all a result of their attitude.

D. Limberacus is meant to be the Operations Manager and yet couldn't give a flying **** about whats happening in operations. He seems to do as little as possible and is more concerned if students are wearing ties than anything else so the school looks nice to outsiders (meanwhile are toilets where left like a stinking pit for months!) He treats both staff and students like idiot children.

They dont pay instructors for anything other than flight time and expect them to do all the administration, scheduling and pre/ post flight briefs for free. Consequently the instructors are reluctant to give briefing and are not happy with the management.

There is only one MEIR instructor and he is also fed up and it becomes apparent in the training, as he will take you on the same route, same approaches all the way though your MEIR. No NDB holds or approaches and certainly no groundschool. (*for a school who claims UK Standards where NDB procedures are fundamental, this is a unacceptable) (The schools website still claims they have UK instructors, when they do not. They fired the last UK Instructor some weeks back for trivial reasons, he was apparently the only well liked instructor in the school.
You can forget about flying in the UK if you train in this school. How can you expect to pass a sim check after such poor training. Oh and once you complete your training you have to pass a mock test with the CFI who tests you on things you've never been trained on, fails you and tells you that you need another 5 hours (this is after 50hrs training!! at a cost of c.1700 euros!)
The flying schedule changes literally up to 20 times a day. You will have to spend from 07:30 until 20:00 most days hoping to get a flight, and besides, the one little minibus goes from the school to the accommodation when the owners feel like it and only once!
The aircraft are always in maintainance with never more than 2 single engines available at any one time, and the only multi available half of the time. Very often there is only one single engine.
Having done some flying out in greece and in the uk, the RT and procedures are so poor in Greece you would struggle immensely to fly in UK. The ATC simply haven't got a clue out there! Its unbelievabley bad.

What else, hmm, oh the ATPL is a complete rip off. Offering and charging for full time ground school and then sticking students in front of a computer every day with no instructor is a joke. The students haven't got anyone to explain anything to them. They aren't allowed to bring a drink into the room either, which again to me is treating them like children!

Accommodation is a crap hole, its as simple as that! I wouldn't want to stay there for a day, let alone a week or a YEAR!!!
There is No Internet. There was internet in the school but that went months ago. This to me is a total disregard for the students welfare and underlines the attitude of the management. Students have lives other than in Egnatia, accounts, bills, properties etc to keep up to date with. These days Internet is Essential, simple as that. and for about 20euros a month in total for the school, whats the problem...

Like I say, most of the problems i have mentioned come from the managements attitude. All they want is your £££££££. If you do for some crazy reason decide to go there, Pay as you GO!

I have painted a bleak picture here and that is because it is the way it is. Do I want to hurt the schools reputation? Yes and I want this to give them a wake up call, but it wont because they listen to NOBODY about ANYTHING.

Yes this place is cheap but at a MASSIVE cost.

egnatia
 

"They fired the last UK Instructor some weeks back for trivial reasons, he was apparently the only well liked instructor in the school."

someone does sound upset for being dismissed!

rat or not, everything else is true..

re: uninformative one's comment - I am not the instructor mentioned. who cares who i am? do you? is that all you can say in the defence of egnatia from all that i have said? say no more :D

Hi all
I have a dear friend out there at the moment . all he has done is complain
about the school. They are now studying Bristol - 3 months later.:ugh::ugh:
One of the directors is a **** :mad: all mouth.
The students are all trying very hard to pass but are let down by the school. But the directors are letting them down. They got 2 nor 3 new instructors from Italy now - lets see how long they last

Egnatia one year later
 

Hi guys and girls.
It's actually kind of funny (but sad as well) reading through these one year old posts and seeing that nothing has changed or improved at Egnatia. I just left this "nice" country one month ago and I can confirm that all said about this FTO and Greek ATC and HCAA is true and up to date.
Take care
May God be with you.

shame
 

shame they cant improve things in a year, but from what i have heard its not at all surprising. they did talk a good/cheap school at the flyer show this year.

anyone care to add their comments or experiences of late out there:eek:?

pilotb200, can you share your thought and observations?

nimpo, are you really thinking of going there?
The main problem at Egnatia is the management. The directors and the HoT and chief instructor are bunch of arrogent "I know everything the best" type of persons. With attitude like that you can never make friendly environment you need to have in schools. If you want some details, shoot questions on my private mail. But if you have already decided to go there, then here are some advices:
Before you go, fill your laptop with porn, movies, series, music or any entertainment you like, ´cause you will not get any in Keramoti (Mosquitotown).
Get ready to lick arses.
Accept and seek any advices and help you can get from older students, because you will not get it from the school.
Have ready some extra money.
Changes your nationality to Cypriot, if you can.
Good luck

What is the current state of play there? Anyone studying there at the moment? I was thinking of looking at them for a JAA IR.

Any advice??