L3 closing Bournemouth?
 

Hearing rumours of a staff meeting announcing this, and flight training to move to Cranfield and Portugal, anyone confirm?

Yes I’ve heard the same from contractor TKIs

Yes, it's true. Bournemouth will be closed by year end.

Single Engine will gradually be phased out by year end and moved to Portugal. Multi engine to move to Cranfield by middle of next year.

Amazed it’s still going...

Well you couldn't have tried harder to eff it up if it had been deliberate - that's true. My favourite was L3 enabling all their competitors by paying them to do the IR training L3 couldn't cope with. If there is a grown up from the American parent company watching some of those L3 managers might be hung out to dry without pensions.

Correct, Alex. Not fit for purpose. Instructors mainly good, management useless (and very greedy).

Alex is totally correct, the management of L3 are a rare breed, displaying incompetence at it's highest level. The merry go around of academy directors which has been ongoing for the last five years should have been a warning sign. CTC use to be a great organisation well run and invariably ticked the boxes from a customer viewpoint. Sadly L3 did not understand the business they bought into and surrounded themselves with egos who told the senior management what they wanted to hear.

V sad as they are some very good people who worked/work at Bournemouth, Southampton and Hamilton.

Maybe we should have a vote between L3 or CAE as to which has more incompetent management.

Tricky one! L3 toxic and a rip off, CAE certainly @ Oxford a shadow of its former self. Shame, Oxford has historically been celebrated as the premier ab initio school harking back to the 60s. Nearly all gone apart from minimal twin training.

Yep multi cpl vfr phase only just so Oxford Saudi can use the Oxford name

Is the move from Bournemouth to Cranfield still happening, as there is no indication of a timetable on their website. Still seem very busy in the BOH/EXT areas!

Yes it's still happening, end of June latest is what I've heard. The absence of any communication/timetable/plan should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with L3.

They are also shutting down Portugal location

Blimey they really are tightening the belt, a shell of their former selves. The biggest shame was the NZ base closing, that was the best period of my flight training by a mile.

Portugal possibly closing seems to be true. There was a all hands meeting there Yesterday and news coming from sources in U.K. stating the same fact. Possibly putting that work to the US base.

Portugal closure is almost certain, with no buyer or market demand they won't keep the base running. Unfortunately again let down by management.

Closing Portugal? Interesting move, they should have never bought an airfield in the middle of nowhere it in the first place. Where are they going to do all the EASA training now? Ireland, Florida or can it all be done in the UK? Closure of New Zealand was a shame, maybe the New Zealand government should have been less pro active with border control. But a fair weather base in a country with almost the same weather as the UK, is not really a viable option.
Personally I think Cranfield is a much better choice than Bournemouth, they should be able to get more training route options from there and a lot less training time will be lost because of commercial traffic.

All L3 training being moved to Florida. No EASA or CAA approvals in their Sandford operation. Cranfield doesn’t have long. L3 winding everything down in Europe.
They won’t be missed. Probably the best contribution to the quality of UK flight training they could make.

Cami : CAVEAT EMPTOR (….as ever….)

Although it may now be academic, do not agree. Cranfield has no Approach Radar with all IFR movements provided a Procedural Service, consideranly slowing down the movement rate if there are two or more IFR arrivals. Somewhere in the order of 8-10 minutes between each? Integrating training traffic with BOH's minimal amount scheduled plus other IFR movements can be far more efficiently handled by provision of APS rather than APP.

Plus, Cranfield's current operating hours, with ATC manning tailored to them. IMHO frequent extensions of hours to accomodate training would not be practicable due to staff availability cause by ATCOs regulated hours?

If it is true that L3 are closing down their ab initio flight training bases @ Bournemouth and Cranfield then they are doing a big favour to the U.K. flight training industry. And to the toxic instructor middle management cabal remember that karma is very much alive and thriving in aviation milieu. The extremely unfortunate DA40 crash at Cranfield was probably the coup de grace although thankfully the young instructor survived. The AIB report available on Accidents is truly damning for all ‘stakeholders’. Swiss cheese almost lined up. Do not send your starry eyed offspring to this dreadful organisation at least until the swamp has been drained.