One Air in Malaga
 

Does anyone have any past or current experiences with this school in Malaga, Spain? I've been trying to contact past and current students but only a few has answered my messages. This school has a fleet of around 10 aircraft, DA20, DA40 and DA42, offering a "zero to hero" course (16ish months) for a price of 59,000€. The place seems nice, but I don't know if it is really that good. They offer 209 real flight hours in Diamond aircraft (most of them are done in the DA20, after that CPL MEIR in DA42 and the rest on DA40) , 86 hours in Almsim FNPTII and 25 hours in G1000 simulator. They have three intakes per year, 16-20 students and are solely doing these programs from 0 to ATPL and CPL MEIR packages. I am thinking that if it is possible to do it in 16 months because of having "only" 10 aircraft and a high student:aircraft ratio. 59k€ sounds "too cheap". They have grown up in these years, ordered more aircraft and I've read that they have ordered a new AL42 simulator. I am just a bit suspicious because of the attractive price... Thanks

One Air Malaga
 

Does anyone have any thoughts / feelings / experiences / opinions on the above? Integrated / Modular ATPL. They are very well priced, facilities seem modern and equipment/aircraft numbers better than previously. Would be grateful of thoughts +ve and -ve.

Be careful
 

Hey , just be careful I don’t know right now how they take student , but I’m the previous promotion and it is not the best. If you want to fly 1 time per week and pay for everything after your accommodation contract’s end go for it , because it’s been more than 1year and half.

I’m not talking about the covid because even before it was not the best , they have good advertisements but that’s all ! Foreign people can’t say nothing if you are not a Spanish they will do nothing for you. It’s sooo slow just be careful if you’re coming here they are so bad for everything. Some of them they are not kind with you , they promise a lot of stuff but nothing at the end just go and ask questions why some student they have only 1 per week and fly only 2,3 time per month!

This academy don't have integrated Atpl just modular.. take a look at Spanish caa page.

Depends on what you're looking for. If you wouldn't mind spending a sort of long holiday in Malaga and flying once in a blue moon, then it's a good option. If you want to get over and done with expeditiously, look elsewhere. That seems to be the general consensus among everyone who's trained there in the past years. Maybe something has changed post-COVID as demand for flight training these days is likely lower than before, resulting in better availability of aircraft, instructors etc - but that would be best explained by whoever is flying there as we speak.

Confirme
 

I confirm I’m still doing my airline pilot program here , and even post covid it’s useless and nothing happened. After 1 year I got my ppl and now the time building it’s even worse. I’ve been scheduled 4 flights for 1 full month and I flew only 1 flight.... so for 1 month I logged 2h.

Just if you’re coming here ask everything and specially ask to student who want to finish quickly because if you ask to student who are friend with instructor they will tell you it’s a perfect school they are good for advertising

Not recommended at all!
I was there in 2018/2019 and it was a nightmare!
Yeah.. At the beginning it sounds great with very low priced but after they will suck you more money and your time. The commercial department will be very responsive and kind to you until you buy your course, when you arrive there you will be left alone, it seems a ghost school, nobody answers your e-mails, you will be watching your days running and almost no flights. They don’t let you make a swap if you need. Instructors were each one it their own SOP’s and just wanted to make more money from you with “extra training”.

One Air has amazing marketing as i'm sure you've seen through their website and social media channels. If you are able to go in and meet them then you'll have all your questions answered. They only care about money and once they have yours... I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

I can not agree more with the previous comments. Avoid this school !
They seems to be very good at first look, marketing is the key-point but when you get in you understand why the price is that low.
Before you arrive, you will get everyone at phone/ mail and if they can't answer they will call you as fast as they can... once you're there, don't expect any more contacts. If you have some kinds of problems or request, forget about this.
Some instructors are very nice... but most of them are completely useless : they don't know some of the most basics rules of the air, speak about non existent rules, in TKI if you ask a question the answer will be "someone told me..." or "you better look by yourself"... don't expect any reference to the official rules of the air.
Want to speak about SOP ? a 2 pages PDF with some words not even translated in english.
Want to speak about charts ? outdated jeppesen charts printed from the account of an airline for IFR & VFR, bad quality paper (not even plastified) charts.
If the sky is not perfectly blue and with no wind, you will stay grounded.
You can not get in touch with the programmation department... good luck when you will need to arrange something special.

For the complete course from PPL to CPL, expect something like 3 years.

I certainly forgot some others utopic things. Don't hesitate to contact if you've any question.

Hi!

It would be great to hear more experiences about one air. I should start my atpl studies there just in one month and i'm worried could it be done within 18 months. I will work hard to get my licences but if it's just not possible because there's not enough flights per week or something..
Thank you in advance!

Hello,
I am also intending to start study in this academy for the Airline pilot ATPL programme.
Anyway how is it going with you? is everything OK ? because I have heard a lot of bad reviews
please contact me . I do not want to spend money on something doesn't worth it .
my email is: [email protected]

I have recently had a bad experience doing PPL with One Air in Malaga, Spain and wanted to share a detailed review. When I was about to start the PPL course (autumn 2020) many places in Europe stopped doing PPL training due to Covid restrictions. Because of that and also due to the weather I picked OneAir. At the time there wasn’t much feedback available (most of the reviews here only came up recently) and they were also one of the cheapest. I will try to give a detailed review of different aspects or the course so that others can make an informed decision - mentioning positive and negative aspects. Of course all of this is purely my opinion and everyone’s experience is different.

Tl;dr: It seemed very disorganized, the course took a long time to complete as not enough flights were scheduled, communication was poor and often rude. The only upsides for me were the simulators and the price.

Course price: The price is available on their website (9600 EUR at this time) and is actually quite competitive in my opinion. Most of the ATOs I’ve contacted charge more, sometimes significantly more. The price also included all the equipment and there were some extra perks if paid in advance. The only elements that were not included were the Medical (120 EUR for Class 2 Initial in Malaga) and the ICAO English test (160 EUR). I managed to complete the course within the paid hours - in fact, I even had extra 1.5 hours on my balance which I flew after the course.

Communication: Everything went smooth during the introduction and until I had signed the contract and paid the money. After that the only people I had communication with were the so-called “Quality” department. Their communication style was often passive-aggressive, hostile and at times plain rude. If I asked a question, the answer usually began with “As you have been told” (even if I haven’t) or “As you know” (even if I don’t) to set a passive-aggressive tone right away and blame this on me. It also inevitably included a template phrase about how everyone in the school is working very hard to make the course great - which to me sounds sarcastic. If I tried posting a question to the wider WhatsApp group with other students in it (and, crucially, the management), someone from the “quality” team often began to message me personally within minutes for “breaking WhatsApp group rules” and threatening to remove me from the group. That’s right, someone in a supposedly professional ATO spent their working time policing chat groups. In fact, the school seemed to have a myriad of rules, written and unwritten, and they regularly sent messages threatening “sanctions” for breaking the rules. It seemed like a weird mixture of military and kindergarten when it comes to the rules and communication.
They have often pointed to the contract (which is obviously heavily weighted in their favor) and denied that they’ve promised anything else. If I happened to have evidence of those promises in writing those were simply ignored (as it was with the course duration).

Scheduling & Course duration: Flight requests are accepted once a week for the following week (i.e. on Monday one would send a request for the week after the following one). Students send availability in a simple email template - there was no proper booking system. Once the request was sent and the schedule was issued, there was no flexibility at all. I could not contact programacion department by any means whatsoever - they never responded to any of my emails. The most I have ever been scheduled to fly in a week was 3 times, even though I was available to fly all day, every day most of the weeks - and wanted to fly more.
Sometimes the flying slots were not aligned with the syllabus - e.g. when I needed to practice landings I was scheduled for time slots when touch&go are prohibited (before 9am). As I couldn’t contact the Programacion when that happened - I could not do anything. Even when I asked the instructors to help and they spoke to Programacion - nothing has changed. Since scheduling is done way ahead and cannot be changed, it can take weeks, even months to complete the navigation flights. If there happened to be cloudy weather on that 1 day a week when I was supposed to have a dual navigation flight - no one would try to help me and move it to a more suitable day. They just canceled the flight and I had to wait until next week. This has only changed in the very last week of my course when a cancelled flight was rescheduled for the day after, so it is possible - just never happened to me until that very last week.
It took me 7 months to finish the PPL course even though I had full availability for flying. In the initial communication, when asked about the course duration, I’ve been told “4 to 6 months but could be less”. Later they tried to claim they meant just the theory part and that I misunderstood.
Finally, when I needed to cancel a flight 2 days in advance for personal reasons, they demanded “documentary evidence to justify the cancelation” and threatened to charge me for the flight. That vividly brought memories from primary school when one had to bring a note from parents for the classes missed. Only after I pushed back several times citing the contract did they eventually back off.

Instructors: As in many places, the quality of instructors varies from very poor to excellent, with most being somewhere in the middle - in my opinion. The biggest issue with instructors is that there are too many of them and I didn’t have an assigned instructor. In fact, in my first 11 flights I had 11 different instructors. As such, there was no consistency whatsoever. Many didn't know me and will probably never see me again. Also, every person flies a little differently and they all wanted me to fly “their” way - and the next instructor too. This slowed down the progress significantly.

Airport: The PPL flights are from LEAX, a small private airport about 60kms from Malaga. There are a couple of issues with it: 1) The airport is rather small and only 3 aircrafts are allowed to be in the circuit at any given time. Since there is 1 more school flying there (Aerodynamics) it means there is often a “fight” to get a place to practice circuits - and those who aren’t lucky to get their spot will have to go do something else even if they don’t need it. 2) It is a non-towered airport and all communication has to be in Spanish (which they did not tell me before I started the course). I speak some Spanish socially but it's far from fluent. I managed the standard phraseology fine. However, at busy times the frequency turns into a chatterbox and it's difficult to follow if one barely speaks the language. With the initial stage of training being overwhelming enough this adds an extra pressure and I felt it was slowing me down as well. It was also a safety concern when not everyone around understands what is going on. They provide you with a “Spanish phraseology course” of a whopping 1.5 hours duration. Ever tried to learn a language in 1.5 hours?

Ground school: The theory classes as well as all administrative things are held in their office near Malaga airport. The premises are very fancy and the equipment they use for the ground school and simulators is generally good. I found their “basic” simulators to be helpful to prepare for the real flights as those resemble the DA20 cockpit and one can practice the “flow” many times so it takes less time in the real aircraft. The theory seemed to be normally taught by the least experienced instructors and quality varies, from very poor to very good - with again most somewhere in the middle. For English part time PPL the classes were held 3 evenings per week on a rolling basis so the whole theory took around 3.5 months to complete.
However, they did not let me fly until I had completed and passed PoF, OP, Meteo and AGK - as well as LEAX procedures, SEP course and Briefing. In practice, it meant that I could not fly until I had completed all of the theory. No flexibility - even if I was due to complete it next week, they did not let me send the flight request until the week after. All materials are supplied in an electronic format on a USB stick - however, it doesn’t include the latest versions of the presentations. I needed to chase the instructors to send those to me after every class.

Personal impression: I think the biggest issue in the end was that I didn’t enjoy the course. I always dreamed about learning to fly and envisioned the PPL course to be an exciting and fun experience. However, due to everything mentioned above for me it was a constant stress and an uphill struggle and I couldn’t wait for it to be over - which really isn’t the way it should be. I felt saving a bit on the price of the course wasn’t worth it and if I had to do it again - I would certainly pick a course in a different school that I would actually enjoy. It might be a little different if one is doing the full ATPL course where it’s not purely for fun - in fact, most of the students they have seem to be young students doing their ATPL course. It could be part of the reason for many of the strict rules and obsession with “procedures”.

I was also doing my PPL with ddartt I can verify my experience was similar. FYI I already had 37 hours of flying, granted from some years ago in the UK but I was not new to PPL. The issue of instructors changing every time affected me more than anything. I ended up having to pay for additional hours even though most of the instructors and CFI agreed I am a good pilot. Just horrible organisation and some incompetent instructors really hold you back. There are some really great instructors but even they can not counter the damage bad instructor will do in your training.

Some instructors are really inexperienced, a few have just finished their training in OneAir and immediately started teaching. You will see immediately they have never been to any airport outside of the 3 or 4 you will fly with one air.

Language also can become a problem sometimes. As we were doing PPL in English, we found most of the material is translated from Spanish and terminologies were wrong. Most instructors also struggle to then explain things further, as most of them also did their training in Spanish and depend on google translate. In technical subjects that you study during pilot training, this can not work. I was lucky I did my ground school before in the UK but I did also struggle sometimes as things don't make sense when translated literally.

I would highly recommend going somewhere else if you are looking for a good expernence.

However I have to admit, they do have some of the best simulators and other equipment you will find in Europe. They also do make an effort to teach in a very organised manner, theory classes are run regularly. an effort is made to teach essential things, however, the way they go about doing it, you will feel you are in primary school. They can not explain the logic of most of the rules they have. the answer to most questions will be "because it is the rule".

And the most important issue will be getting flights, if you want to finish in a timely manner this is not the place for you. If you don't care about time, flying 2 or so times a week is ok and happy to spend 8 to 12 months then it could be the place for you. I do know someone who loves the school, but I can tell you he is probably one 1 person who does.

Sent them an email asking about course info. They replied asking my availability to schedule a phone call. Having given them my details, no call back or follow up email. I guess they don’t need my money.

regarding the instructors bit, what is the range of their nationalities? As I heard this school has a diverse workforce of instructors. Which I believe would be very beneficial if it were to be true.

The vast majority are Spanish. There were one or two from other countries.

Leaving the school
 

Guys,

Im currently at the school and its a disaster communications are terrible, there's a rude do called 'quality department'; which is the only point of contact. People seem to be getting more hours than others for unknown reasons and the school can't seem to justify giving people a single 1.5 hour flight per week. Flights operate from a small airport 60 kms from Malaga and it is truly dangerous as all comms are in Spanish making it impossible to understand what's going on traffic-wise, something that was never mentioned when signing the contract at the school. Im wondering if anyone has ever left the School and got their money back for the training you are yet to do ? if so what was your experience ?

Hi,
I am also starting my CPL conversion and ATPL training soon but still looking for the best school.
What is your experience with One Air? Although Google is my friend it is much more helpful to hear real stories about these schools.
The one that is the most sympathetic right now is Easy-Pilot (good experiences from former students, low price, enough and appropriate info via e-mail/phone), but it is still not fixed with them (I am the most indecisive person on Earth, I guess :D ).

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid. The school is an absolute scam. They take way too many students and are run by an incompetent team who are very rude because they know their practices are unethical. You fly one time per week, 2 if you’re lucky or they like you. The airport is dangerous in a valley between the mountains, it is uncontrolled and all communications are done in Spanish and the amount of near misses that occur is not normal. Two of their aircrafts recently crashed fortunately with no fatalities.

One Air Malaga Integrated ATPL
 

Hi, I am wanting to study to be a pilot at this school due to the cheap prices as right now it is the only place I seem to be able to afford, however some of these comments are quite concerning to me. Can I ask the people with negative experiences the following questions please.
1. What is your native language and can you speak any Spanish? Reason I am asking is because I moved to Italy and in the begining I also found I had a negative experience and then I started learning Italian and once I made an effort to speak their language, I found my experience completely different and more positive and the people more inclined to be helpful towards me.
2. Is anyone currently doing the integrated ATPL course which is what I want to do? I have been told by the school depending on what course you take depends on when and how many flights you get?
3. The school has also told me that you have to perform well in the theory lessons to get to fly as if you don't do well in the theory then it is unsafe to let you fly, so my next question is are the people with negative reviews on here doing well in the theory side of things or is this just an excuse from the school?
4. Do any of you stay in the Resa student accommodation and what is that like?
5. Do any of you use the school transport and how reliable is that?
6. How long on the days at the flight school? What time do classes start and finish? Like what is a typical day like?
7. Do you get a lot of homework over the weekends? Or do you have time to get a student job on the weekends? Do the students get along with each other and what kind of socialising do you do outside of flight school?
8. If the school was as bad as what people are saying on here why hasn't their teaching licence been revoked? Surely the school has to adhere to strict measures and safety standards in order to keep their teaching licence which they have to renew annually? Have any of the students reported the school?
9. Are there any students currently studying at the school that are from the USA, Ireland or United Kingdom?
​​​10. Has anyone had any good experiences at this school?
11. Once you have passed your exams and have your pilots licence are their any former students who are now pilots? And if so how easy was it to get your first job? Did the school provide support and help with this?
Thank you for taking the time to answer me, I really need to know the answers as I want to be a pilot with all my heart and right now this is the only school I can afford.

I am thinking about joining them next January, looking forward to learn feedback too from students.
Thank you

which course are you thinking of taking? Which country are you from?

You know that modular courses are cheaper right? And faster. The only good reason to do an integrated course is if there is some kind of job placement attached.

Hi Guys, I'd like to share my experience so far on this school.
I started in 2021, Modular "APP" course, along with the first integrated promotion (when I signed the contract, it was not available yet). I completed PPL groundschool just before 2021 ended and went to the authority on late january to do the exams they require you to fly (AGK; POF; OPS and MET) and started flying mid-feb. Initially I would get one flight per week, as most students did and still do, however after I got my solo that would normally increase to 2, 3 a week during the PPL, which meant by July I had my checkrride. I was surprised to find out I was only the third person from my promotion (we were around 60 people for the APP and around 20 from the Integrated) to get my license and that no one was close to the completion of the PPL as they would not get more than one flight per week. In fact, as of today, 7 months later, around a third of these people still haven't had their checkrrides mostly due to the lack of flights and cancellations. Once I got my checkrride, I paid a visit to the school to sign the documents required to expedite the license, around 5 or 6 days after the checkrride. The school closes in August and they told me they'd leave everything ready so by the time they'd come back in September I would already have it. So around mid september I call them to check the status of the license just to find out that "I hadn't signed the papers", blaming me for something I hadn't done as they would not confess that they simply hadn't issued them to the authority. I decided to go once again to the school to deliver the documents, collecting proofs that I was there just so it would not happen again. After that moment, I started to ask on a weekly basis for the status, with no answer. 3 weeks later I would not tolerate it anymore so I started to ask instructors to please raise the problem to the Director, which was actually helpful as he completed in 10 minutes what I had been waiting for since July (we were around november at this point).
So far this is the only problem I've really had with the school and I was not the only student on that situation. I got my license after 4 months but I have a couple mates that had to wait even longer. The school has its pros and cons, so far I've been programmed 105 hours in 1 year which I believe is reasonable, even though I'm just a bit short of 70 hours. The easiest way to get hours quickly here is to become friends with the instructors and use the standby system, so if a flight is cancelled by X reasons you may be given the slot. Around 20 hours from my 70 are from standby calls. The biggest advantage for me is the fact that SENASA (The exam authority) comes every 3 or so months to the school to hold exams, which is way more convenient that going to Madrid and I believe we're the only school in Spain outside Austrocontrol that can offer this.
The Main disadvantages are the lack of flights. Even now on the hour building I rarely get more than one per week, but most of the time it's over 2:30 hours. A DA20 / Tecnam 2008 slot is 95% of the time 1:25, a DA40 / SR20 slot is normally 2:30. It would be great if they were just a bit flexible with programming, or at least you could get asked if you are available during X, as some times I've been rescheduled flights for the following day, let's say instead of a local 1:30 flight, a Navigation to LECU (400 km away) and the way back on train to Malaga.
The ATPL theory can drive you crazy aswell. You get the bristol platform which well, is sufficient, but you don't get theory classes at all, only doubt-solving classes during a couple of days per subject. If you want to go to the ATPL exams you need to do the internal exams which are held once every 3 or 4 months, in the "Revision week". You will also need minimum hours per subject on a platform that tends to work incorrectly when speaking of adding hours to your balance.
If you still are interested in doing your atpl here, please, please and please go for the integrated way. They have 2 or 3 flights per week by contract. Some of the integrated guys that started together with me are almost on they multi phase and here I am, they don't let me do ATPL exams and I've been waiting 3 months to do the Night Rating flights (I did the theory in November!)

I really wished I had found this thread before signing up with One Air. I think I was taken in by their "award winning" training facilities and the fact that it was in the south of Spain, so flying hours would be more reliable than in the UK, weather-wise.

Like others, I was told that I would be able to complete in about 3 months - and in hindsight this should have been another red flag.

I had to return to the UK for family reasons, after only having 1 lesson in the air. Granted, all the theory was completed and all exams had been passed, but flying lessons were very hard to come by with an awkward booking system.

Some of the instructors I spoke with were just as frustrated, as they wanted to instruct/ fly.
But from what I can tell, there are too many students, too many instructors and not enough aircraft.

I'm in the process of trying to get a partial refund (mainly for the unused flying hours), so I wanted to see if anyone else is in a similar situation, and maybe we could start a coordinated group effort (as I think a many-to-one approach may have more chance over a one-to-one approach)

Has anyone ever managed to get a refund from this school?

Hi Ryan,

I'm really not sure, but I'm thinking probably not (or at least not publicly).
Are you trying to get a refund too?