What are people saying about you?
The aviation community is very small. Someone you met in flight school may be the person who right seats with you at the regionals, and so on. Pilots will encounter people again and again, particularly if aviation becomes their career.
And this very small community talks amongst itself. The advent of the Internet has made that much easier, of course. But this is a community that has always looked out for each other. I’m seeing more and more examples of people sharing stories intended to help each other avoid bad instructors and bad flight schools.
In the last month I have read these comments in various pilot groups:
“He wanted me to pay him $500 for his ground school and got butt hurt when I told him I was going to use Sporty’s. He says ‘good luck doing it on your own.’” (This was an eyebrow raiser because most flight instructors really don’t like teaching ground school and are only too happy when their students “do it on their own.” (Oh, and the instructor’s ground school materials were the “free version of the Kings’ question bank and an older version of the Jeppesen private pilot handbook.”)
“After the flight, he invited me to lunch and I ended up going because I wanted to buy him lunch as a thanks. Well leaving the lunch he proceeds to ask me to take me on a proper date.” (She said no, she wasn’t comfortable with that. If you’re wondering why CFIs should not ask clients on dates, see “Power Dynamics,” from the June 24, 2019, edition of Flight School Business.)
“Despite the fact that I schedule flight time on the school’s online calendar well in advance, the owner frequently calls me to ask if I can swap slots, and my flights have been cancelled several times in order to accommodate those who are closer to their check ride and those working on their instrument rating. …. The expectation seems to be that I adjust my schedule and come in whenever there is a slot available, despite the fact that I have a full-time job and even though I have already booked a slot on the online calendar.”
Pilots regularly remind each other not to do careless things in advance of a flight with the phrase, “How would it look on the NTSB report?” Meaning, how would your careless actions read in a National Transportation Safety Board write-up of the accident that’s sure to occur?
Flight schools and CFIs should do the same thing when it comes to customer interactions. If you are trying to sell a ground school program to an unreceptive client; or asking out a student; or overriding a client’s scheduled flight lesson time and time again, know that others in this small community are reading about your actions and taking into account whether they would ever want to spend their money with you.
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