What to look out for when evaluating a training providers costs
November 24, 2024
The first intro to flying for most is a trial lesson, and most schools will offer at least one trial lesson before you sign up. It’s a good idea to try out a few schools to see which is the right fit for you as a student and the best place to make your investment in flight training, so allow for a few trial lessons. We offer a discovery day which has 2 lessons and some ground school to let you fully experience what training is like at a professional flight school with modern aircraft. Get in touch with the team to schedule a discovery day, trial lesson or beyond.
Some older schools charge application fees to cover interview and selection process. This can be a few hundred pounds. We don’t charge anything to apply.
As flight training is in high demand in the UK most providers will charge an enrolment fee. Some will include some free services, products and discounts (ours do), some will just be to secure your place. You should be expecting enrolment to be around 10% of the total training cost.
Just as an aside, if you are enrolling on a course that has a payment plan (fixed monthly payments) you may need to make advance payments of your first month before you start. Make sure you are comfortable with paying large sums in advance if you are on a payment plan, and make sure you are happy with the contract, specifically what will happen to your paid in advance money should you decide to pause, delay or stop training (most UK providers do not refund anything paid in advance). As we are pay as you go, once you are enrolled you don’t pay in advance for any training at the Academy, and your specialist training is the same. This gives you flexibility not currently offered by most other providers.
Most schools in the UK will charge on block time (the time that goes in your logbook) to the minimum standard required by the CAA (eg in the Private Pilot Licence, part of our Foundation training module, you need a minimum of 45 hours). It’s important to note that minimums are just that, and your training can exceed the minimums. (We aim to keep as close to minimums as possible, our use of modern aircraft with digital course tracking means we are better equipped than most). You should get a breakdown of how much each stage or course will cost, this will allow you to get a rough total of your training.
So previously we talked about minimums, and here’s why this is important. If your school is not using modern aircraft and course tracking technology, chances are you may be wasting some time in the air, this will mean your course can go significantly over the minimums. And heres the catch that’s present in over 90% of training contracts in the UK, anything over is paid at the rate in force at the time. Most pay in advance/payment plan courses are just covering the minimum, and they are usually doing this at a discount to their pay hourly training (if they offer that). This can mean a jump of up to 30% per hour when you go over the minimum requirements.
We keep our overages to a minimum by not wasting effort while in the air, making maximum use of time in the aircraft. And our training contracts give you a discount for all flying you do, even if it’s over the minimum you’d expect, so you will never have an unexpected rise in your training rate.
Landing fees are something to budget in for your training, and you should ask for an expected breakdown of the costs if it’s not included in your course. Most training providers will include landing fees at their home base (we do) during all parts of your training and hour building, but make sure to check your contract. You’ll do easily over 100 landings during your training, and with some locations charging £55 for even a touch and go it’s easy to spend thousands more than you need to if you choose the wrong provider.
Most providers won’t make mention of this at all as it can add thousands to the sticker price of the training. We’ll provide you with an estimate of these costs when you start with us, they are also included in our training brochure.
Learning closer to home is a great way to save if you can, but sometimes your local provider isn’t the best choice for your future career. If you need to travel make sure to budget for this as part of your overall training costs. You may find it most cost effective to move closer to your chosen academy, take a look well in advance at rentals or flat shares to get an idea of pricing. )For your specialist training away from the Academy accommodation can be provided for you as it will only be for a few months at most).
If you are training towards an airline career and would like to train for both European and UK pilot licences then you will need to account for the additional fees this will attract. The tests for your ATPL theory exams can be sat in the UK for both, however the skills test for your Commercial Pilot Licence and Instrument Rating need to be taken in EU airspace. That may involve taking an aircraft abroad, so the further you are from Europe the more you can expect to pay.
Before you settle on one provider remember
You can download a brochure from our website here, this has our terms and an outline quote for your training with us. We also include a section to see an outline quote for your specialism training towards an airline pilot or flight instructor role. And remember, any training you need over the minimum is at the same rate in your contract and all your landing fees at your based airport are included.
Book a meeting with the team, view our live and on demand webinars or take a look at our pricing in our digital brochure.
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Unlike other schools, we allow you to try before you commit to training.
