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Any ideas how often do VFR students are having their flights now?

A320 hour building

Dear expert fellows.

I need advice regarding A320 hour building program which is offered by aviation cv. Are they reliable? One of my friend didn’t had good experience from them. He was dropped from program and aviation cv not even replying to email!

I think it is not a right place to ask this. Topic is about BAA Training but not about Aviation.CV. If you read this thread carefully through you would find some information regarding to AviationCV. But again it is totally irrelevant.

[

I'm pretty sure you just answered your own question

Situation of BAA now? Is worth to go for wizzair cadet program there?

Hello guys
I read so.many things in this forum and I really appreciate your sharing. Can you please advise me how is the situation now? Still all this mess or is something better?

I am planning to apply to the wizzair cadet program but with all this comments I am thinking if should be better to do the ATPL in a school without this cadet program and then try my lucky in the end of the journey.

Thank you so much for you opinion

The biggest question will be will you be selected for the Wizz cadet programme. Try to apply. If they do not select you, then go with another school.

I agree with this as well. Go for Wizz but nothing else.

CaptFindusTK99

What an incoherent mess of a post

Hey, I see that they offer cadet program with LOT Polish airlines now , this is new and exciting! A friend who also took a look said he saw that being a EU citizen is a requirement, is that true ? Also, how is the school cost-wise ? Some say the price to be bloated because of their reputation some say its just right.

hid3

Did they say they want 50% of the course price up front before any training. (31000 euros)

Then 100% of the price within 1 year of starting.

If the theory stage is 10 months, then this means that 2 months into your flight training you will have paid off 100% of the course. (all 62000 euros)

CAVEAT EMPTOR ~ DUE DILIGENCE are the watch words with any contractual agreements

Reading recent threads may well give you all a sense of “ déjà vu “

Fibonachi

This- when I contaced them they said 50% had to be paid up front, then another 25% whilst in ground school and another 25% at the start of flight training. I thought this was unreasonable.

I took it as a red flag that they may take the money and then mess about.
If not for this reason I would most likely would have picked them to do my training, but because of this unreasonable policy I declined.

Has anyone accepted to train there on these terms? How did it work out for you in the end? - I'd be wary of anyone asking for this much upfront and before training.

Obviously they need funds to finance the growing school and they want to take it from you as early as possible. In 2020, they are in need at least 10 C172 and 1-2 Multi in order to continue flight training operations smoothly. Moreover, they are not hungry anymore for self funded student considering they are having cadet program with Turkish for 120-150 student per year, Wizz for 80-90 student per year. LOT is coming as well. Therefore from commercial perspective they can impose unreasonable conditions to the rest.

Hi all !

First message on the forum I discovered by a friend.
I read almost all the posts and I don't want to bother asking the same question again.

My situation is a little bit different because I'm just looking for an MCC and eventually a TR A320.
BAA offered me a so good price for that was expecting to join them for 6 weeks.

Reading your posts, I'm afrid to make a mistake.
Do you think that the MCC/TR branch is also bad or it just concern the integrated formation?

Thank you for your time and advice.

Hi guys,
BAA right now is not that bad
theory to VFR it can be less than a month, VFR to NIGHT VFR, is done in the last stage of your VFR training so no delays, VFR TO FNPT AND IFR is done almost at the same time and the waiting is 2months.
To many toxic people in this forum.

not entirely true. Some guys finished VFR after 3 months then waited 4-5 months for IFR.

not great BUT I think most still complete ATPL within 2 years still so that’s good.

uberfly

Well, they lost Wizz contract no long ago.

i know, just saying that for a company that keeps hiring like Wizz, to cancel a contract with a eastern europe flight school, says something.
from other side, is great they got Turkish and LOT, lets hope they stop imposing crappy conditions to students.

Hello to everyone,

it's the first message that I'm writeing here,
Just I would like to share my experience with the BAA and what I felt during the previous moment of the assessment and the day of the interview.

From the day when I started to ask question to the Project manager who follow you during the process (a young girl who doesn’t know quite anything if not just some pdf which will give you to let you know something better) N.B. she will ask everytime to the “assessment center” to be sure about everything will tell you… so this means.

She made a bit of pressure to “pay” for the assessment (380€) and decide a day, since I decided to do the “cadet program” for LOT she told me that I should have the interview before than 20th February because after the “final interview” there should be done during 26/27th of February (after paid she told me that LOT could have some dates after 20 March or during the beginning of April)

Btw I asked her many times which kind of test there were during the assessment…. She told me only “cut-e” and when I asked about the compass she answered me “no” (in the CUT-E there will be the compass, she didn’t know and when I asked to the HR why there was the compass when the PM said me no she replied “I’m not the PM)

TEST:

As you can find online there are enough test to try and it’s ok “be careful” for the “complex control” because is a :mad: cause a bad link with mouse and flash plugin, the English test isn’t so simple and also the sinonimum are difficult, mostly because are “old” and I think neither so common for the language. The dialogue between Tower control and Pilot are difficult to understand ( often I've got only numbers and “left and right”)

INTERVIEW:
I didn’t like to woman in front of me, she was so “cold” and full of questions and often a bit annoying. “tell me a classic day of a pilot” “do you think that is a good life that one of the pilot?” “why LOT Polish”? I’m enough old to don't stand these kind of question because surely I think that a lot of persons would like to earn and fly for a perfect company and stay there and lie to explain why we should enter in a company than another one I find it unprofessional.

Neither 24h after I had the email with my failure.
No one motivation, no one test came back to show the transparency… just a “don’t be disappointed”.

if this is the scenary of BAA at poiny I wouldn’t to apply for anything else but they have the best cadet program actually... so.

Do you know how many candidates there’re per year to the BAA cadet program?

Quote:

Originally Posted by PilotRoger (Post 10689484)

Well, they lost Wizz contract no long ago.

This is surprising. Any details or reason behind the cancelation?

Come on Uberfly, are you really asking yourself why? You pointed out all the problems at BAA in this thread. I believe Wizz also figured them out and prefered terminating the partnership. Besides, BAA has commited 75% of their C-172 fleet for the Tukish airlines cadets. So the situation is not gonna improve anytime soon for the rest of the people, especially the ones currently under IFR training or finishing VFR.

By reading this thread, it should be quite self explanatory... Good luck to the students who joined the school and who were relying on this partnership.

Unfortunately for those who are trying to be optimistic about BAA, I have to agree with almost everything written on here.

Let's begin with the positives:

Ground School (Vilnius)... Very good. Structured fantastically and with ample time to sit your CAA exams every few months.
IFR (Spain)... Very good, Cessna 172s are in great condition, FIs are brilliant and bring a wealth of experience.
MCC (Spain)... Very good. Great sims and fantastic facility in Barcelona, FIs also, albeit all 15 hours are squeezed into 3 days.
Some of us avoided the Lleida winter fog for 4-5 weeks as we were the guinea pig group for the Castellon base.
The Head of Training in Spain will go out of his way to help students.

And for the rest...:

VFR (Spain)... Shambolic. Students being assigned as flight dispatchers, and if you were from a particular country in Southern Europe, you'd get preferential treatment. Tecnams always in maintenance, and if you were to have an engine incapable of idling on LY-FTMayday, who's fault is that? You, the student. So get prepared to pay 230EUR per hour if you require to retake a lesson (or fail a check). Speaking of prices, 315EUR for the C172 and 460EUR for the MEP are the going hourly rates. I wouldn't be surprised if BAA charged you more for a Tecnam SEP than you would pay to hire a 747.

MEP (Spain)... This I can only describe as a spectacular disaster of monumental proportions. 2 multi-engine aircraft, that for much of the year, are either grounded or occasionally grounded. Going through the MEP phase is like wishing upon the heavens that something doesn't go wrong in those 8 hours of flight. Turkish Airlines cadets (who have more priority than the Queen of England), ATC Controllers from Vietnam, Tapk Pilotu (Lithuanians only) and then the rest known as "normal students"(Wizz, Smartlynx, Avion, LOT, indepedent students, modular students), for just 2 aircraft. Some students took 2-3 months to complete the MEP phase, some took 3 weeks. Not to mention, you now have to complete MCC BEFORE sitting your CPL & MEP exams. I guess the money that could have been invested in more aircraft was used for the 2 new Avia Solutions buildings and the random big bull statue in Vilnius.

But the worst of all is the attitude from the hierarchy at BAA Spain. Too many managers and no one takes any responsibility. The Ops Director who's lack of experience adds to the fact that he is as useful as a getaway car with a flat tyre. Admin staff who are not always polite to you, and let's not forget the 2,350EUR price tag for PBN and AUPRT that goes up by 100EUR every so often.

Get prepared to be pushed down the pecking order on the sims if a client who's not paid yet decides to do a MCC course or type rating.

And finally, don't buy in to the fallacy of being recommended to a "partner airline", unless you wish to wait for a disguised pay-to-fly scheme like Smartlynx or Avion Express. Wizz Air are lacking pilots and already have type rating dates, yet BAA tell you that they're not hiring until next year. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know a single independent student who's got into Wizz, perhaps BAA will use the COVID19 excuse for the next 20 years.

Wow, a realistic review after months of silence. How's that?! Didn't they include statements in the contract that you cannot respond negatively about the academy anywhere/to anyone and always your responses must be only positive otherwise you will be dismissed and your money won't be returned? Be careful on this site as well as on other sites - use temporary email and use VPN/Proxy unless you want to be prosecuted.

As for Wizz scheme, is it resumed already? According to the last information I had the Wizz Cadet scheme was suspended at BAA for 'undefined period'. Reasons were the school was behind the agreed schedule to deliver the students and the preparation of the students was at very poor level, basically all of them were below average. So as a result of that the already on-boarded cadets were to finish the course yet no new candidates were accepted to the programme.

hid3

Wizzair has signed up with L3 now. The only thing BAA has going for themselves are:
- Turkish Airlines (Given the negative feedbacks from their students, doesn’t seem to have a future)
- Marketing scam to rate themselves as one of the top 3 aviation company (The rating was done by their parent company; Avia Solutions)😊

I would strongly advise anyone who is thinking of joining this place is to read the comments in this forum and Google Review, and talk to some of the previous students before making a decision.
Also, its a known fact that BAA employees like to get fake user accounts and pretend to be students there in order to advertise for the place: BE AWARE!

Does baltic provides ATPL Theory? I mean online

Bojack they use BGS material (and I'm heartened to see the positive reviews above of their groundschool, they are very thorough), I don't think they provide distance learning online but a number of other ATOs across Europe will do with the same material

actually BAA have nothing. No flight instructors, no planes and also no maintenance. They also have no connection to any airlines except their own parent companies. Not a single LOT cadet has been taken in by LOT after graduation, this so called cadet program with Spanish airline is also a scam/marketing scheme, the reason why they cant say the name outright is simply because those said spanish airlines refused any ties with BAA. Those said spanish airlines want to be associated with proper flight schools like FTE jerez which is why they have an actual connection with those said airlines :)

the managers who run the school are just there to build their CVs, while they work at BAA, their intention is to earn as much money as possible, then leave for a better job. They don't care about aviation. The previous operations manager at Lleida airbase did just this and left to become the COO of a kitchen supply store in Alicante. The managers in Vilnius dont even have any history in aviation- they're ex art teachers and have done their degree in History, liberal arts etc. stay away.

It is normal. Avia Solution Group companies has this mentality and also to its employees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleidapilot (Post 11320257)

Well said. It is obviously scam, why not to disclose the name of the Airline? Because like you said these airlines do not want to be associated with BAA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mindaugenius (Post 11320197)

update 2022 website says : 11X tecnam p2002 8X Cessna 172S and 2X MEP tecnam p2006T
reality: 2X p2002 2X C172S and 0 tecnam p2006T. They do not have a single multi engine aircraft.
The realibility of the single engine tecnam is poor, most of the time require maintainance- they do not have maintaince in Lleida, they do it in Reus or Sabadell.
Flight instructors: there are 5, everyone else left for something better. The ones currently working are seeking new jobs.
Better to let this flight school go bankrupt, they have absolutely nothing to offer.

Those are stock photos of pilots (download free with trial from adobe)

another update from today: not a single tecnam p2002 flying

The truth about BAA was posted on these forums and in multiple other places in 2018 and in 2019. Those training now would have seen those very detailed warnings if they researched.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A320LGW (Post 11324567)

The truth about BAA was posted on these forums and in multiple other places in 2018 and in 2019. Those training now would have seen those very detailed warnings if they researched.

If anyone is still dumb enough to sign up with these people, he/she deserves to be screwed by them

The situation in the flight training department is bizarre.

First of all lleida is quite a horrible place to live and to fly. The summers are too hot for the tecnams to fly- it’s not uncommon for the temperature to go over 40c during peak summer. Winters as we all know is too foggy. Limited ifr so the period when you can actually fly is spring and autumn. But the management wants you to stay in lleida, all year around , just for you to come to the airport and get cancelled. They do this because they want the schedule to look full, but in reality it will just be cancellations. The schedule is sent a day before, you get a roster with “red days” so days off but the situation is so unpredictable that most people agree to be scheduled on their red days. You cant plan your life almost at all. It’s also common for you to be scheduled on a broken plane. The management knows that it’s broken, and as they do not reply to texts or emails it’s impossible for you to know that it’s broken unless you go to the airport and find it out for yourself. And they do because as mentioned before the schedule should ‘look’ full. As the others have pointed out the maintenance is done in sabadell or reus, which means that it probably will not get fixed soon. Moreover the maintenance BAA pays for is cheap. The guys come all the way to Lleida airport without tools, then after that they’ll come with tools to fix it, but not properly as nearly after 3-4 flights there is always something. It’s incredible.

So as you will spend most of your time in lleida let me describe how it is to you: it’s a town in the middle of nowhere, it’s main income is from farming, but as the local youth move to bigger cities as Zaragoza and or Barcelona there is a lack of workforce- which means that there are many paperless immigrants doing this job, but as it’s seasonal most of the time theyre in the city- they dont have the best reputation and because of this the city is quite unsafe. It’s heavily policed, for a small town you will notice that there’s a lot of police. However the police don’t do anything, theyre useless and corrupt, if you are a student who looks foreign ie. arab, pakistani or black, expect to be harrassed by EVERYONE, cops, security guards, bouncers. It also doesn’t matter which nationality you are, say french passport holder but you’re black- to the locals you will be a paperless african immigrant and will be treated as so. Its not uncommon to be denied entry from cafes or bars if youre of the ‘wrong ethnicity’
The city is very unclean and it stinks- there is a rat problem, there are needles from drug addicts everywhere but worse of all there is dog s***t everywhere in the city and no one does anything about it. Locals do not know how to throw trash, they leave it outside the trash bins and this is one of the reasons the city smells. The other reason is because of farming. Students are very unhappy and many go into depression- they cant also escape the place because they might be scheduled and they will have to do preflight planning and depending on which stage you are it might take a while, its very inconvenient. If you want to find out how lleida is like you can follow the local news outlet on insta laveudelleida.

The airport is around 20 mins drive from the city. There is no public transportation to the airport. BAA have 2 shuttle bus drivers, who have certain schedules and certain stops, but the frequency is poor. According to the schedule around one ride every 2h. Baa charge you 3e each way, they send you the bill at the end of the month and then they add VAT of 21% on top of it. There is also another problem, one of the shuttle bus drivers does not follow the published schedule. So he will give you place and a time to pick you up, which is more convenient for him, so he can shorten his duty time at your expense. It’s quite common that he will ask you come 3-4h before your flight or pick you up only after 3-4h after your flight, so your entire day is basically wasted. In general he will refuse to give you a lift if you are the only passenger and you will have to wait for another fellow student. This said drive is most commonly found sleeping in the briefing room couches. And this the reason why he will not pick you up according to the published drivers schedule.

Lets talk a bit about your training. You will have 10 hours and then you have check one, yes you read that right, you have 10 hours and then you are expected to perform a solo traffic pattern. As mentioned before, because of the aircraft availability, maintenance problems and weather these 10 hours will take 2-3 months. It is not uncommon for students to have a gap for one month and then go for a check and fail it. Then they assign you extra hours and the price is as follows- 1hr 230e tecnam p2002 1hr 315e c172 and 1h 580e p2006T (which they dont even have, they rent it from EAS Barcelona, their price is around 200e for 1hr)
Around 50% of students fail the first check.
Then we have the MEP phase 8hrs on a rented plane and then CPL, however these 8 hrs take 2 months, even without a backlog, mainly because of management issues, and their unwillingness to rent the EAS mep.After this 8 hrs you will have MCC 15hrs on a sim which takes one month , because they will prioritize type rating student and you will have to wait one more month to be scheduled. After one month without flying you will have the cpl skills test and you are expected to pass it, if you don’t you will be unemployable and pay a recheck fee of 300e. The management will extend your contract without your permission, illegally and for any reason which they can find (which they have probably created- failing a check (cuz they didnt schedule you consecutively), taking ‘holidays’ because you were sick etc.) And if you do not fit into this category they will make a reason up- COVID (this didnt actually affect your training but who cares right?). They will write you an email where they take advantage of the students desperation to finish and will write something along the lines of this “hey, we really want to schedule you but in order to do that you will have to sign the contract extension” If you want something in the extension to be changed you will be sat at home until they fix it, and only schedule you to fly once you have signed this illegal extension. I’d also like to point out that they are not willing to cooperate with you, all your phone calls, emails will be avoided. If you go to the airport to talk to them the management will hide from you or just blow you off ‘i’m very busy’.
The contract which you sign in the beginning has many clauses for BAA to not to bear any responsibility for delaying your training, Namely excusable delay which is defined as follows “ means any of the following occurrences which substantively impede the performance of the training course 1) issues with the customers visa 2) customers unsatisfactory performance 3) illness or absence of cutomers flight crew partner or other inability to perform the course 4) technical failure of BAAs equipment 5) unexpected delay or cancellation of flight 6) change of instructors schedule due to an important reason 7) unforeseen unavailability despite exercise of reasonable diligence of baa instructor, simulator or other equipment 8) acts or omissions of the customer under the agreement, which negatively affect BAAs ability to perform its obligations hereunder;”
Then there is clause 11.3’ should any circumstances arise whereby through no deliberate fault of baa it fails to provide the customer any training course due to reasons other than force majeure or excusable delay then baa may only be liable to the customer to the extent that baa shall grant the customer at no additional cost the non provided training course on alternative dates convenient to the customer and subject to the availability of BAAs facilities, equipment and personnel.’
The contract you sign in the beginning is against you in every possible way and you as a customer will have no idea what you are signing into as you will not know the reality of the training, availability of the aircraft,backlog and how your training course is laid out etc.

If you do however manage to get in contact with the management to talk about the issues, they will reply to you in a very KGB manner. Instructors got a warning from the management to not to give any info regarding the situation of the maintenance of the planes. There is recorded footage of the COO threatening students “ students who do not cooperate with their flight school tend to have bad careers” , previous flight operations director has given threats to students, in response to not being scheduled - that he will not recommend them to any airlines. The company has issues with other aviation bodies in spain as well, for example the COO has not payed maintenance services for up to 6 months, which ended up in terminating the contract with the said provider. EAS Barcelona asks BAA for upfront payment for renting their multi engine as they are not credible anymore.

The state of the briefing room is horrible as well, rats, spiders and lizards inside. 2 or one out of the numerous computers working. Printers barely working, to print charts etc. You are not provided with an ifr enroute chart, you get this yourself. There are 2 toilets and they dont function either.

When BAA posts out propaganda, they generally interview groundschool students, which for the most part is alright and of high quality. These students have not gone through flight training yet, or are in the very beginning which is why they will not have a lot of negative things to say.

There is also a youtuber- pilotjonathan who gives quite a good picture of BAA, however as he has been advertising for them, his training has been alright and BAA tries to accommodate him and his requests, since he does the advertising job for free. I would not trust his statement because of this. Also BAA forbids students to say anything negative about it, while in training.
If you are thinking of applying with this school, I would recommend you to get in contact with a student who is already deep into their flight training, other than BAAs own marketing students, get their review and then think about it. Groundschool students do not know the reality, due to this KGB attitude of withholding the truth and not replying to emails, phone calls etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A320LGW (Post 11326967)

Every single thing you mention in this post was already mentioned on this forum over 3 yrs ago now. It's nothing new, unfortunately it seems you just didn't look for/find it ... anyhow, you will finish your training at some point. I know all about these problems, you will get there in the end though.

The problem isn’t just “finishing the school” and getting done with! BAA has a bad reputation with majority of Airlines and other flight schools. When an employer sees the name “BAA” in candidates CV, that CV usually gets tossed away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warlock1 (Post 11327093)

Honestly that wasn't my experience at all, I had no issue with jobs after graduating.