OAT Going up the spout!?!
 

What are OAT up to at the moment? I have just discovered that they are making even more redundancies!?! Is it slowly crumbling to the ground or what? Why are they in such trouble, I know the events of September 11th have hit them hard but the management seem to be on a path to destruction. Even from where I stand I can see that decisions are being made in haste with out proper thought. Where is the money being lost or wasted that they need to make even more redundancies? We should have seen it coming when OAT suddenly stopped appearing in the Media only to appear again sometime later with inferior adverts. Can anyone tell me what's going on over there?

I VERY much doubt that OATS is going to go bust any time soon. Such idle speculation is a waste of breath and bandwidth.

WWW

And you think the other topics these pilots tend to discuss are anymore valid? This a serious point. OAT are floundering at the moment and although I agree they probably will remain in the market, they seem to be getting rid of a lot of good people. Explain that!?!

AE,
Are you training at OATS? If not, how do you know this? Who is being laid-off, ground or flight instructors? Turn your comments into something more substantial and you may get this thread going!

You never know, they may have got rid of the admin staff, in which case we might speculate that they've been reading the rumours on pprune :D

[ 03 December 2001: Message edited by: The Islander ]

Totally agree - So who's gone?

[ 30 November 2001: Message edited by: MrSpock ]

Added Extra. "I heard down the pub last night that xxx school is going bust" threads are not at all welcome at the moment.

If you had made a post that outline what you knew and how and THEN speculated that they might be going bust I would have been a lot happier.

Inside info is very precious at the moment. I want to see as much as possible here. If you have some then please post it. If all you have is a sniff of a hint of a rumour then silence would be preferred.

Cheers,

WWW

This might sound rather perverse, but if they are making instructors redundant it is (in a sense) good news!

I know nothing about the financial affairs of OATs but do know a little about the PPSC story. The wage bill was something in the region of £500000 pa. Following the introduction of JAR there simply weren't enough students to cover those costs. The company lost something like £250000 in 2000-2001 and were on the way to doing the same this year.

Had the management taken early action to reduce the workforce (and cut down on other costs), the company would probably still be in business.

If recent comments in this forum are anything to go by, OATs'income (and that of all the other FTOs) has been cut drastically. If this is the case and they do nothing, then no parent company will support them indefinitely.

[ 30 November 2001: Message edited by: Keith Williams. ]

Management care to comment????? :confused:

WWW- I am currently a Modular Student at OATS- and let me tell you first hand, and everyone reading this, things are not at all sweet at the moment- far from it.
More than a sniff of a rumour ?
How about this.....
1. AP 204 given priority over everyone (including IRT's and later BA courses)in case OATS run over time with them and face a penalty, and the contract is not renewed.
(if I was reponsible for BA cadets I would include this time penalty clause in every contract)
2. Recent RAF students, IR training on the Senecca 3, given a dedicated instuctor, and A/C, flying every day, Wx permitting, whilst Modular students sit around waiting for an instructor, or indeed unable to fly a 170A for an IRT , as no A/C is available as remaining A/C were tech. or being used by said RAF.
3.Modular (and BA) students told this week, to start and finish their IRT from Bournemouth, (Don't tell me OATS has no backbone when dealing with the CAA).
4. OATS Modular OPS Manager given terms of notice this week, somebody who works a tireless day, with 5 mins for lunch, bags (sic) of experience, leverage etc. .......no doubt to be replaced by someone who will accept a lower pay packet.
5. 63 engineers from Signature given redundany , aka immediate sick pay.....increasing tournaround time for minor jobs for 'A' defects.
6. Several students a signature on an affadavit away from taking OATS to a not so small claims court.
7.Need I continue...

One last thing, the standard of instruction is beyond reproach, and totally professional.....that said IMHO most instructors would leave if something better came up

Watching this thread with interest.......... :(

Always said that instuctors were up to scratch, but school let down by the 'back room' boys. Interesting if any of this is true, and have to say not entirely surprised that students now looking at taking legal action against school. There has been far too much messing about with the programme (flying especially) to the detriment of students, and despite students having raised this over and over the school has allowed the situation to deteriorate to this!!

Sorry to see it happen if true, but don't say you couldn't see it coming. Maybe now we can get some professional and effective management practices in force. :( :( :(

In recent threads concerning the health of OAT Marigold has been very quick to reply with the standard managementspeak. However, on this occasion he is notable by his absence. Is this significant, I wonder?

The fact is, of course, that OAT will survive until BBA management realise that they are pouring their money into a bottomless pit of incompetent management. When, eventually, light dawns OAT will go under, which is a shame because the real workers, both ground and flight, are the best in the industry. All I can say is 'Thank God I transferred my pension!'

Base Leg

Your post is the best post I have read on the Wannabes forum for a long long time.

Is there anyone else who would like to give some good inside feedback on OATS. I am happy with their ds ground school, but I am not going to hand over any dosh for flying until I am sure they wont give me a hard time..

Anyone?......

Base leg

Pardon my ignorance- but what, or who, is AP204?

Sadly when BBA took over OAT, they chose to remain with a bunch of management who where selected, it appears, more for their lack of management skills and commercial experience than any level of competence and expertise. Having inherited them, BBA seemed to prefer to live with them rather than recruit internally or externally for greater experience and talent. Once, when they seemed to have selected someone who had some skills, they removed him very quickly form his position when he would not be party to their machinations.
They, or at least Signature is, pumping a great deal of money into another money pit called Tyler, where it seems that the rainfall exceeds that of Oxford by a significant margin and all it has to offer it is a cheaper fuel bill. I would have thought it would been more financially expedient to invest in better aircraft than the aging fleet of Arrows and Seneca's who hourly costs and poor utilization must make them more expensive to operate than the revenue recovered through training. If anything was required to be made redundant it was these old beasts, leasing new aircraft couldn't have cost more per hour and even if they did the rise in productivity with a smaller fleet would have had a significant effect on profitability.
I agree with Rolling Circle's comment about the Instructor team at OAT, when will they realize that people are the asset in this business, not land and equipment? Too late for both customer and employees I reckon!

[ 01 December 2001: Message edited by: EL SID ]

AP 204-British Airways Trainee Pilot Course

There has been some excellent debate on this subject and whether fact or fiction it should still be aired. WWW I believe that on this occasion you were very wrong to pre judge the issue in such draconian terms. The fact the topic was raised has already enabled others to come forward with snippets of information. Any investigation is normally solved by putting all the pieces together and this forum should allow for that. Am I wrong to believe that this is no longer a RUMOUR network. Lets have the fact and the fiction because from my experience there is normally no smoke without fire. Free speech and thought are a fundamental right, which we are all entitled to and if it stops some innocent wannabee getting fleeced I am all for it. Feel much better now and all the best to each and everyone of you. :mad: :confused: :D :cool:

Yeah well I just can't see it happening. They have a lot of work and have probably been the most successful FTO of the last 10 years.

Realistically one would imagine CABAIR with their greater exposure to the PPL market is in a worse position. There are a lot of other FTO's out there with shallower pockets than OATS that I would expect to see go to the wall first.

If OATS needed to generate cashflow - ie they really were in crises - they would simply lower the course price £10k and customers would flood in leaving other schools in crisis. They aren't doing that so I see no cause for alarm yet.

Current students moaning about management, sponsored courses being given preference and other such bugbears are nothing new. Every school gets it all the time. Always has done and always will.

I'm not closing the thread or anything so stop having a go at me for pooh poohing it. I am a JAA approved Commercial Flying Instructor with loads of mates in the major schools... my opinion is as valid as the next mans.

Not to forget of course that I was wrong about SFT so who knows..?

Cheers,

WWW

I did my BCPL - CPL/IR approved upgrade at OATS Modular this time last year.

WWW is right, being put to the back for sponsored cadets is nothing new, I had to wait for two weeks whilst a bunch of BA cadets finished their courses, in the meantime, no other planes were available. Blydi frustrating it was.

The instructors were top notch, I enjoyed my time and still got finished with three months.

I still think it's a shame they closed the Glos base.

WWW I was not having a go, far from it just putting a point of view for keeping the forum an open market-place. Bit like Albert Square, loads of rumours some of it bollox, but some true. Hope to meet you one day and keep up the excellent work, you certainly helped me to achieve my goal. ;) :D

Cool. :)

WWW