As a student pilot I would stay clear of any UK Aviation Commercial Schools whether integrated or modular, I should know as I worked at one for 2 years while I did my licence (it was run by complete criminals, just sucking money out of people) who wanted to do their commercial pilots licence and they knew very well as soon as your in for 5k your in for the full amount and you are game for whatever they want to do and they can extract more money out of you and you wont complain. Bit like some airlines as well btw.....

People think the UK is the best for many things, employment rights etc are miles behind many other countries in the UK. I think particularly in aviation the standard is very poor in commerical schools, German and Dutch schools dont pull the kind of stuff you read out about here.

Lots of really nice flying clubs in the UK where you should do your PPL, hour building and take your friends and family up ands how them your flying skills and make it a nice day out. Then get yourself on a fixed price all in course somewhere in Europe where you can crack on with it without any distractions.

In 99% of cases you will save time and money, I wish I had done it!

Absolutely agreed. Greed is the only motivation in any integrated school it seems. People don't realise this fact and as you've well explained are put in a situation of weakness where they've already coughed huge amounts of money in advance. Always wondered why CAA or EASA don't even have a word to say. Oh sure, it is completely "legal"...

I would rather not reveal my training location, however it is correct that the delays are not evenly distributed, with Bournemouth in general being the worst. A year or so ago, with Bournemouth already running over capacity, they took on a contract from the RAF to provide basic training there. Of course this brings in more money for the company, but in my mind doing this was inexcusable given the fact that L3 cadets i.e. their customers are paying nearly £100k and were already facing delays before the company decided to squeeze its capacity still further. It just goes to show what the priorities really are.

Others here are right to point out the problems with integrated providers, and with hindsight I probably should have done what Gonewiththewallet suggested above. You pay a bunch of money but have nothing to show for it i.e. no flying qualification until the end of the course (no PPL along the way like with modular). This effectively means that you're stuck in their pocket until you get the fATPL at the end, however long that takes. A few people I know did jump ship but that's a lot of upheaval.

The delay payments we get are welcome but nothing like what I'd be earning in a job if I'd finished on time. Other than that we just get hollow corporate apologies and promises that they are working to reduce the delays, meanwhile day to day nothing changes and they hide behind the 'subject to change' clause safe in the knowledge that we're all on the hook for £100k.

2nd hand info but a lot of people I've talked to have had numerous delays during training, regularly up to 6 months total during the course of waiting. L3 are trying to reduce delays, but still taking large intakes of new cadets regularly when the training pipeline is bursting.

I'd say if you can get in on a scheme tagged to an airline, go for it. If not, CAE might be a better option.

Cash flow isn't an issue for L3, it's a gigantic company with deep pockets and they are investing heavily since taking over CTC, ramping up training all over the place.

It was actually the flight school side of CTC that L3 wanted. They had sim centres all over the place, but wanted to be able to offer everything from first flight all the way to airline level. Let's hope things eventually settle.

May I disagree. When L3 acquired CTC they didn't operate any civil sim centres

I have a friend in CAE who's in Phoenix and he has a 6 month delay on flying, hes flown 5 times since September when he started, He said his buddy in L3 has the same delay also. As a result, my friend is thinking of dropping out and doing a modular at Jerez, or somewhere in the UK. Having passed the stage 3 my self not long ago.

Personally, I don't think It would be viable to stay an extra 6 months because of the living costs an all (my parents are remortgaging the house, so I don't come from a particularly wealthy background but the support is really there) so I'm going to do my medical and do the fast track modular course at Aeros in Gloucester airport. It's £75k (a bit cheaper) you get the same licence and you get virtually the same support with airline interviews. Those who graduate get jobs within a year at various companies, BA, Ryanair, EasyJet and FlyBe just to name a few. Plus the living coats in Cheltenham/Gloucester are quite reasonable (in terms of a house share).

TL;DR- Yes there's a six month delay. It put me off so i'm doing modular instead.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS? WTF

18 months is the worst I have heard but upto a year is not uncommon.

Modular is good as you can take control of it yourself, though the general consensus would be to stay away from Aeros, they have a bad repuation for fleecing students once you are signed up and paid deposits.

I can guarantee that you wont get it for anywhere near 75k! That's the hook price, do your PPL in the UK, get your exams and get a fixed priced school in Europe, safe your time and money for when applying for jobs and need some sim practice etc.

Brave New World once the C-19 is under control either by vaccine or other mitigating techniques, and the offers which will be made to entice newcomers to the party in the next 12 months.
DUE DILIGENCE & CAVEAT EMPTOR must be at the forefront of any prospective customer.

Just how FORCE MAJEURE clauses will operate for those already training might prove interesting. Delays will eventually evaporate and a semi arid desert will occur.

Quite frankly, anyone signing the dotted line now blindly planning to start flying training in the next two months or so on an intergrated course isn't fit to be flying an aircraft, this should be one of the easiest decisions to make with the information available.
There are enough poor souls within the training system currently who are facing eye-watering delays and increased living costs, L3 did not repatriate many of it's cadets despite UK Government advice as it was too expensive for the school to do so, add on top of that some EasyJet MPL graduates amongst others going through the type rating are having their training cancelled and contracts terminated shows the wheels are coming off the system properly, as for whitetails or new graduates, you have my upmost sympathy, but use this time to get an idea of a second career to at least see out what will be a prolonged period.

Hold on folks, it will end and improve, but there's going to be a lot of suffering first.

Is there any news when L3 will resume training?

Spanish lockdown is being eased from Monday 25 May with flying schools slowly and carefully starting back.

There have been several posts on facebook from L3 students on courses in Portugal who have had their training contracts 'cancelled' by L3 since the COVID-19 crisis started. I don't know under what terms or how much money was retained or refunded.

I'm curious about the force majeure clause in said contracts. What level of protection does it provide for either party under these circumstances? A pandemic resulting in a global lockdown is definitely a bona fide cause of force majeure.

I have never seen a CTC or L3 contract. Is there some sort of NDA in place?

I think that the cat may well & truly be out of the bag (given social media reports) with dissatisfied customers due to L3’s inability to provide training in a timely manner, as anticipated in the contract.
NDAs ability to conceal the dissatisfaction is now ineffective. The dam has burst.

These contracts are invariably heavy weighted in favour of ATOs and provided the experience stays positive, remains on track, everyone is happy.
However, when a number of FIs simply jumped ship to fly the big silver birds etc, then of course problems arise.
Depending on the level of dissatisfaction, M’learned friends may well be earning a crust.

The paradox is that given the tsunami, there will be numerous ex FIs, (now/about to be unfortunately made redundant from airlines) who would be more than happy to be re-employed at an ATO.

A new era dawns post lockdown.
Those ATOs who take a more holistic approach and treat those unfortunate trainees caught up in the tsunami well, similar to a doctor/patient relationship, (as oppose to a hard nosed commercial contract) will invariably become stronger and survive by doing it right. Social media can be very persuasive.

Irrelevant if the contract is void anyway as what does the student have to lose. No large company is going to sue a 19 year old for making come comments on Facebook.

parkfell

Take if you’ve never dealt with CTC/L3 then?

Whatever happens it will be done in a way that ensures they can screw the absolute maximum amount of money out of the student/instructor for the minimum investment.

I expect them to have their glossy mags up and running again in no time, and given that if Daddy is paying it doesn’t really matter, they will probably fill their courses up quite happily.

Social media really doesn’t matter. They’ve treated their students like absolute dirt for years (ask me how I know...) but people don’t want to read things that go against their dream, and will continue to gladly part with their cash.

I suspect that “Daddy” will have woken up and smelt the coffee, as they say...?

The amount of denial and fear amongst students in sausage factories is quite astounding if you come from other backgrounds... It's all about selling the dream.

Why?? If you’re loaded and little Jimmy wants to be a pilot you’re still going to fund it, it’s not like they all got jobs anyway. For a lot, the money is so irrelevant that it’s just another thing that Jimmy wants to try out and hopefully may finally get an actual job out of it.

The ones to suffer will be those who were put through by the airlines or in some way sponsored, that’ll dry up completely which is a real shame.

For our 20 year old without the brains to get into uni or the drive to have any real career prospects, but has loaded parents... They’ll be absolutely fine.