End of OATS?
 

With 22 instructors made redundunt, and the owners ultimatum to make a profit by autumn, is this the end for OATs as we know it?

I think that would be a very sad day for british aviation. Let's hope someone comes up with a rescue package. A staff/management buy-out may be one answer. Fingers crossed that the pilots get a reprieve.

Building seems a more likely outcome

What on earth is all this about????
 

What on earth is all this about OATS being told they must make a profit before Autumn? My understanding is that the OATS parent company have just invested considerable money into OATS in order to establish Tyler and also I notice some of the groundschool facilities have been upgraded since I was there at an open day last year.

Can we have some facts here please rather than unsubstantiated rumours? We've all seen the damage these can cause. Some of us are potentially about to write large cheques to OATS and would appreciate knowing the business is on a strong footing.

Desk-pilot

I really wouldn't worry about OATS going bust. There are several schools that would go before them I would GUESS.

WWW

I don't think this sort of annonymous rumour starting, WITHOUT FACTS, benefits anyone, it is just damaging.
I have spent along time researching OATS and its parent comnpany with a view to my CPL next year.

I do not think they will be wrapping the business up in the near future.

SIZE=3]FACTS ONLY PLEASE !!!![/SIZE]

What a load of old testicles
 

You know, every now and then a load of old carp (anag) ends up on Prune, and this is one of those occasions.

I work at OATS. I am a Ground Instructor and thankfully was not caught up in the major restructuring of the company because the ground side has always turned a profit (I'm told).

The flying side were peeing into the wind, not their fault, but what with poor weather and other factors something had to be done to make them profitable, then of course along came Sept 11th when several well known aviation companies had an excuse to blame their poor management on something else and things became even harder.

The upshot of all this is that Oxford Aviation Services is NOT closing down, we ARE making a slow recovery into better profitability and I might even get a payrise this year :)

If you are thinking of coming here please do, we'd love to see you and pour into your overworked brain the information necessary to pass the wonderful JAR exams.

We will also help you to drink any excess beer you may have at hand when you pass :D

Best wishes to all, especially anyone who's been exposed to my C130 fire warning impersonation.

WWW,

With all due respect, that's what they said about PPSC, and look what happened to them!

Maybe OATS should reduce the rip-off price they charge at the moment and stop living off the name.I had a look round and i have no doubt that you are trained well but when you add in all the costs it is so expensive.Without lowering the standard of applicant make it available to more and over time you could increase turnover and profit.

I know PPSC and SFT were big suprises and people got their fingers burnt.

But its a pretty lame to rumour about OATS going bust.

They have laid off flying instructors and thats of interest if you are an FI or are considering taking that route. But I don't see it as a prelude to going bust.

WWW

Jocko, how do you "live off a name"? By GETTING a bloody name in the first place, of course!!!!! Yours is the most specious argument I have heard. People want to go to OAT because it's good. If it weren't they'd stop going. It's as simple as that!!

People don't pay fifty thousand quid on a whim, you know. Every self-financed student will almost certainly have considered other options and then made a conscious choice.

The same is true for the airlines, who are even more discriminating and knowledgeable.

You can't "live off a name" if you haven't got one.

As for the price, don't you think that laying off those unfortunate instructors is a method of bringing down the fees or at least avoiding putting them up for as long as possible? They're trying to do the very thing you're moaning about. So what do you do? Moan some more.

OAT just can't win on this website:

Do nothing = Arrogant sods (on this website)

Do something = Is this the end of OATS? (on this website)

I notice this sort of thing comes up every 3 months or so on Wannabes (usually started by one of the same 2 poison-pen writers). Stick around for long enough and you'll notice it, too (unless they change their pprune names, of course).

Remember:

"As these are anonymous forums the origins of the contributions may be opposite to what may be apparent. In fact the press may use it, or the unscrupulous, to elicit certain reactions."

I dont doubt that OATS provide very good instruction but they charge a fortune and they are using the name to sell the product,fine no problem,but the price just keeps going up.I believe that just because you can use the name does not mean you can charge a fortune despite the fact they are very good.Whether i am proved wrong(please do if you can i will take it) i cant help feeling that as a self financed student you are helping to subsidise the big boys.And dont tell me that the airlines and OATS havent got some arrangement.For the record i dont want to see them going under and i am not questioning their dedication to the task of training future Pilots.

Hey Guys

This is just the sort of rumours you would hear about oats............THEY ARE RUMOURS.

Relax guys, OATS is not going anywhere yet, Not if i got anything to do with it.

Isn`t that right Mr Begley.

Speak to you soon.

Anonymous Indian

jocko,

Prices of any product are based on what people are prepared to pay for that product on an open market. If you don't like the prices OATS charge, go somewhere else. If everyone agreed with you, no one would go to OATS, and they'd be forced to reduce their prices. However, the fact that they have people queueing up to pay their prices suggests that this is obviously not the case. Simple, huh??? :)

FFF
---------------

I'm at OATS at the moment and would like to say two things:

#1. If OATS is going bust then its the busiest place in the world going bust! You cant move for students, just when I think I recognise everyone another 30 or so come back from the states and I have to start all over again!

#2 Its worth paying the extra just for PFDs impressions!

TBL:D :) :D

Sincerely hope OATS is ok but a word of caution I was in a full class at SECOAT a few years ago when they went bust. I lost everything but I still get a nice letter from the Receiver every year to say I am still getting nothing back. Hey **** happens!

I think there are a lot of people wanting to get into flying who will pay OATS the money and it is not up to me to change their mind, however i do think that some of them may think that even though (once you take into account all outgoings)it is so very expensive, they will walk into jobs much more easily because they have been to OATS.Everyone keeps mentioning approx £50K but it is more likely to be over £70K and that is a lot of money just to get a prestige name on your letters to airlines.My original reply was just saying that if they reduced prices then over time everyone could benefit not just sponsored students and people with rich daddies.People who want to be pilots would like to go to well established and respected schools and OATS is that but are they really worth so much more.As a last point i did not start the rumour of them going tits up but whoever did show the evidence.

Heys guys

Boy lard, i totally agree with you. You can`t move in that place, there are that many people.

So many people are moving around the place that it is hard to get to know everyone.

And PFD`s jokes are unique. Ah they make his lectures fun. Well done PFD

OATS is here to stay otherwise we will have a lot of angry Khalifa airways students.

Anonymous Indian

Dear all. As the originator I don't think I ever said OATS was going bust. All I suggested was that the present changes may not have finished.

If they are downsizing by 22 Instructors in the present tranche, and selling airframes, the school cannot be as busy as it was. It may look busy if you were not there to make a comparison with it at its best. SECOAT, PPSC, TRENT, SFT et al were busy up to the receiver moving in. The flying school isn't raking in cash. More changes may be in the wind.

In view of the response, Smoke without fire and all that.

Thought you'd be back before too long, Eddy, with more innuendo, bull!!!! and, as Greengage quite rightly pointed out earlier, poison-pen material. What's your case? Why do you hate Oxford so much? Have you been sacked by them? One thing's for sure, you ain't no student wannabe!

Of course the present changes haven't finished. They are part of an ongoing program to try to sort out some of the very points that have appeared on pprune in the past.

The school is just as busy as it was. Oxford has some 400 students this year. The reason that the instructor strength is being downsized is because you just don't need that many UK IFR instructors when you are doing all the VFR in the States (at less cost to the STUDENTS - which is what it's all about) - a fact of which you are perfectly well aware, because you have been following this saga and all of this has been well publicised on pprune. You choose to ignore this in your arguments because it does not suit your agenda.

Well, that might be your agenda, but the TRUTH is my agenda! How many times have you read on this website that some of Oxford aircraft are so old that they're never serviceable? Quite often. Finally the management are NOT ignoring these issues, they're gripping them. That's why they're selling the aircraft. Get rid of the older ones - Oxford need fewer in UK if they're going to fly fewer UK flying hours and more Tyler flying hours.

As for "smoke without fire", it's beneath contempt. They hanged Timothy Evans for that and then later found out that they'd got it wrong. Anyone who uses that as an argument is publicly admitting that he has no evidence. Enough said!