Toronto Airways raises Instructor Rates to $70/hr :(

[Luscombe]

I for one am glad to see instructors making a little gain here.

I was a full-time instructor for 3 years. I loved instructing but hated being in one of the worst paid and worst treated professions going. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with my students but was forced to move on to other avenues of flying simply because no one could make a real decent living at it. The only ones I knew who could do it were either financially independant, had a spouse with a good job, or were doing some sort of specialty training (like sim instructor for an outfit like Flight Safety).

I hope this is the shape of things to come.

[niss]

Its a backwards mentality when the cost of the instructor is more than the cost to operate the a/c.

Hey Niss, how much do you think it costs to run a commercial a/c? Fact is that FTUs don't make any real money on the a/c rental. The only profit is in charging for the instructor.

Exactly, that is why I kept the cost of the rental the same as it is now in my calculations.

But to be paying $130 for the rental and then $140 for the instructor on AB INITIO training is ludacris to me.

If I wanted to pay that much for ab initio training i would learn to fly a flingwing.

[Crazymax]

As par ususal everything gets blown out of context. So it must be that you never did instruct since if you did you would know the stupid things that students can do. It does not matter how much ground prep you give a student they can still kill you.

I didn't but my wife did instruct for 3 years and she has the same opinion I have.

For god's sake, the military trains us with 30 hrs under the belt on a 1100 HP High Performance airplane and I don't think any instructors here almost died because of student's mistakes. So I still believe that if you think it's dangerous, reconsider your job. If you can't prepare your students properly (or motivate them enough to prepare themselve), then it might be dangerous, but then you make it dangerous.

Max

[costermonger]

But to be paying $130 for the rental and then $140 for the instructor on AB INITIO training is ludacris to me.

Stop pointing to your hypothetical number and feigning outrage. When FTU's are charging $140 for an hour with an instructor, I don't think the training industry will even remotely resemble it's current self.

[Apache64_]

Hate to tell you Niss, when instructors aren't instructing we aren't just hanging out around the airport. We are prepping for the next student, making training aids etc, depending on the size of the school etc there maybe other jobs involved, these odd jobs maybe covered by a base salary. The best year instructing i made around 33,000 dollars as a class 2 instructor. I flew maybe 800 hours. I taught groundschool, developed the groundschool, I was the Chief Pilot of the charter side. I worked 6 days a week and about 80 hours a week.

In the hour between students, we also spend time doing paper work for our students that usually doesn't get charged back to the student.

My question for you is this, when you went to your flight school, who did you ask to talk to about learning how to fly? The secretary? The janitor? The mechanic? Nope, I am betting you talked to a flight instructor, the one who was standing around doing nothing between students. Just outta curiosity, how much did you pay for that chat? I am willing to bet, natta. I cannot count how many hours I spent with potential customers looking to become pilots, discussing the ins and outs of the path of a rec pilot or becoming a career pilot. When the student says thanks and moves on or ends up flying with another instructor, I never saw something for the work I put into it. The people who did come back and become students where the best people I had the pleasure of flying with so I am not complaining.

If I had taken a second job, I wouldn't have been around to talk to those students, to persuade them that my school and I were the best to fill their needs.

Instructors need to make more money to convince them to stick with it and make it a career not a stepping stone. To convince the experienced pilots to come back after flying the real world and fill the new pilots with knowledge and pass on their experience.

I no longer instruct, couldn't afford to stay in that neck of the industry. Luckily for me, I fly with quite a few of my former students, and hopefully will be able to move into the training department of the company.

Eventually might end up instructing again, if I can make a career out of it, not a debt.

Sorry for the rant and yes, paying more money sucks as a student, been their myself, but hopefully you pay for what you get.

Cheers


Apache

[comeoneileen]

Niss, you have some crazy ideas about the worth of an instructor, flight instructing, the training industry, and value.

[niss]

Hate to tell you Niss, when instructors aren't instructing we aren't just hanging out around the airport. We are prepping for the next student, making training aids etc, depending on the size of the school etc there maybe other jobs involved, these odd jobs maybe covered by a base salary. The best year instructing i made around 33,000 dollars as a class 2 instructor. I flew maybe 800 hours. I taught groundschool, developed the groundschool, I was the Chief Pilot of the charter side. I worked 6 days a week and about 80 hours a week.

In the hour between students, we also spend time doing paper work for our students that usually doesn't get charged back to the student.

Like I said earlier, the instructor should either be paid more (a reasonable amount) per hour if he/she schedules his/her hours and works around their schedule. If an instructor hangs around all day, does paperwork, etc. this should be covered by a base salary.

My question for you is this, when you went to your flight school, who did you ask to talk to about learning how to fly? The secretary? The janitor? The mechanic? Nope, I am betting you talked to a flight instructor, the one who was standing around doing nothing between students. Just outta curiosity, how much did you pay for that chat? I am willing to bet, natta. I cannot count how many hours I spent with potential customers looking to become pilots, discussing the ins and outs of the path of a rec pilot or becoming a career pilot. When the student says thanks and moves on or ends up flying with another instructor, I never saw something for the work I put into it.

I work at an outdoors store part time and get commission for my sales, I work the potential customers and at the end of it i may not get my commission at all. I still get the base salary and so should the instructor.

Look, dont think that I am against instructors getting more money. I am totally for it, but as for the mechanics of the world, they are charging $60/hr and usually seeing $25-30, so an hour to hour comparison, instructors arent dooing too terribly.

The problem I have is when people want to get paid more than double what a decent amount is to cover the hours they arent working. I feel that a base salary and an hourly payment is fair.

Niss, you have some crazy ideas about the worth of an instructor, flight instructing, the training industry, and value.

Im not the only one, if you cranked the instructor wage (not what the flight school charges but what the instructor gets) to something like $70/hr for ab initio, tell me where your customers are going to come from?

People can complain all they want at how small their paycheques are but a huge salary isnt worth a piss if there are no students to pay for it.

[niss]

I am not a person who expects things for free. I ask my instructors what they feel is fair, and to bill me accordingly. If I can afford it I pay it, if I cant I dont get my training, but I dont quabble over the bill. That said I expect that my instructor who is teaching me part time dosnt look at me as his sole income and theirfore bill so that he makes atleast $30K a year with my meager hours.

[Spokes]

Hedley,

Its not the students fault that the instructor doesnt get enough hours.

The only reason you say an instructor is worth that much is because of how few hours they work.

Instructors are not worth $100/hr, just because they only work 500 a year.

Again look at my mechanic analogy.

You play you pay. Remember the Instructors work is not just in the hour that you are flying. There is a ton of preparation and study work that instructor does to make sure that the lesson you are taught is the best possible. They have to! They are teaching you to control a 120mph machine into conditions that vary from beautiful to extremely nasty and foul, if you are a CPL student. They have to make sure it is done right. Now it ain't Top Gun, but it is still teaching you how to put your life in your hands. Hell when I taught a 3 hour met lesson in groundschool (when I still worked at a flight school) one evening, say, I would review the material for at least an hour, sometimes 2 or three hours prior to teaching the 3 hour class. thats 4-6 hours work for which I am only paid 3.

I think a minimum for a class 4 should be 30$. I freelance instuct now. My rate is 40/hr. I have been in aviation over 25 years. I think that that price is extremely fair. If I had more overhead I would charge more. Ground instruction is done in my clients home or office space. Air instruction in their aircraft.

Like I said, if you cant afford to pay, you should not play. 12 large for a PPL is mot unreasonable. Most people end up being into about 40-50k for a commercial licence with maybe a float or IFR endorsement. With say 150 hours of instruction, an increase in 20/hr over the 20 that the instructor was making would add 3K to this bill. Not a big difference, and not going to turn every prospective pilot away from their dream to fly. It would however mean that an instructor could make a decent living.

So often here I have seen endless discussion about low time instructors, and poor quality of instruction and so on. At poverty wages why do you suppose that Instructors get out of it and move on when they have a bit of experience. This attitude that instructors should not get paid a reasonable profesional wage ensures that only the lowest experienced pilots instruct. Exactly what common consensus around here frowns on.

Good luck on your training. I hope the quality of instruction you receive is worth every penny you pay for it.

[niss]

Hedley,

I think a minimum for a class 4 should be 30$. I freelance instuct now. My rate is 40/hr. I have been in aviation over 25 years. I think that that price is extremely fair. If I had more overhead I would charge more. Ground instruction is done in my clients home or office space. Air instruction in their aircraft.

I think the $30 for a 4 is fair, its the $70 an hour for a class 4 I think is nutso.

If you are freelancing $70 isnt bad, but when the flight school has to pay $70 to the instructor, and the flight school charges massivly more to the student. Thats when things get hairy.

You instructors should get what you deserve, but when you make your demands, bear in mind as to where the money is coming from, and who has to mark it up.

[Pete]

Who carressss Niss. Let it go. Yeah, its more $$ invested in training...but everyone has a valid point. Flying isnt cheap, paying extra for an instructor...who may stick around because of an increase in pay...you can only benefit from. It sucks running through instructors, but you'll lose more $$ in the end flying with 10 different ones who keep moving on. Yes its a bit more ching, but this overall is a good thing. Like someone said, hopefuly Toronto Airways is setting the bar, and the rest follow...good on them, and good on the instructors out there!

People can complain all they want at how small their paycheques are but a huge salary isnt worth a piss if there are no students to pay for it.

Lol you must be a golfer "If it wasn't for us golfers you wouldn't have a job!" "hey rich F$%^ Face, if it wasnt for us you wouldnt have a golf course!" lol You cant use that Niss...its a lose lose regardless. Let it go.

[happily.retired]

WOW, so many comments to respond to, and they all seem to be from Niss
Where to start?
Your mechanic analogy - Mechanics don't have to worry about not getting payed for a month because the summer thunderstorms are wreaking havock on flight conditions. Shops can tell clients "We can't get you in for a week. Your car is going to take a few days longer than expected. or Oh, we told you it'd cost X amount. Ya you're gonna hve to give us twice that much now that it's done." That's very different from the reality of being a flight instructor.

Then there's your question of how many people want to be career flight instructors. Me for one, and more than half of the other instructors I've worked with over the years. It is a profoundly fulfilling job. It's the lack of security and food on the table that changes most of our minds.

Your theory about getting a second job is completely unrealistic. In addition to the points others have made regarding needing to be at the airport 24/7, having another job is also dangerous. I know I tried it. Here's what my schedule looked like that summer. Up at 0600 - Shower, breakfast and check wx. 0700-0800 commute to the aiport. 0800-0900 fill in a/c logs, check messages, walk arround all a/c, clean windows, recheck wx, call book keeper with plane, pilot, and student hour updates. 0900 - hopefully fly, 1100- hopefully fly, 1300 eat my noodles, 1400 - hopefully fly. Inbetween times - sweep hangar, vacuum offices, dispatch students/renters, answer phones, deal with walk ins, call students trying to book flights with them. (I hope you've noticed there were only three billable hours in here, even if everyone showed up and the wx was good) 1600-1700 commute back into the city. 1700 - 1200 or 0400 Work a second job at a restaurant were I generally had to shut the place down because all the other servers had already worked a lunch shift and couldn't legally be asked to stay that late. On nights when I was lucky enough to get off before midnight I would then drive another hour each way to go back for one more hour of night flight. On those nights I would generally sleep on a couch in the back of the hangar before starting it all again the next day. If you don't see the absurdity of this set up I'll point out that I ended up hospitalized with bloodpoisoning (25% mortality rate) that the doc figured was likely linked to a non-existant immune system from sleep deprivation and stress, and that I once fell asleep on a flight (and more than once was in a catatonic state that was of sadly little use to my students - Yes I am ashamed of the product I was providing that summer but it was the only option that was available to me at the time) So no, "Go get another job you lazy bum." is not a solution.

As for your point that the pay is crap because it is an entry level position. BS! Instruction used to come from experienced guys: ex-airline, ex-military, high time guys. That stoped because it's no longer worth it to them. Apparently ths trend played itself out before you started paying any attention to aviation - maybe around the time you were learning to use the toilet all by yourself.

In response to your theory that instructor should be paying a base wage that is independant of hours flown - Where do you propose that money should come from? You just conceded that there is next to no profit made on the a/c rental, so if the school is going to pay base then they 'll have to increase the a/c rental rate. Which works out the same as increasing the instructor rate for the student but does nothing for attracting/keeping good instructors.

AS well you seem to think that the PPL is rather unimportant. You couldn't be more wrong. Can you explain to me how to teach a pilot how to fly a good ILS approch if they can't remember if it's APT or PAT? or how to manage loss of their critical engine if they never bother to use their feet? Without intensive (and expensive) retraining a poorly trained private pilot WILL become a poorly trained commercial pilot even if they have an amazing instructor for their CPL.

And just so you don't feel like I'm picking on you Niss:

Max,
Your comparison to miltary pilots is rather different. The military has the opportunty to screen their pilots and kick their butts if they don't perform. If civilian instructors could pick and choose their students and demand pushups for lessons not read their numbers would improve massively.

On a related topic Niss, How's your search for a cut-rate instructor going? What's your ETA (in flight hours) for your PPL?

Now you guys have gotten me on a rant that lasted untill 0100 so if there are unedited typos don't give me any flack about it.

Good night.

[niss]

Actually I have found an experienced instructor for a rate comparable to what my previous one was charging.

I am not trying to beat down on anyone and telling them they are worth less than they are, but the way I see it it doesnt matter what the industry was like 20-30 years ago, what matters is what its like now, and right now a class 4 is an entry level position on their way to bigger and better planes.

I just dont believe in artifically proping up wages like that. I believe in paying for every hour worked, so all that time you are at the airport working you should be compensated for. It should be calculated and worked out that your time is getting paid for. I dont belive in arbitrarily picking a number and saying this is the worth just because of how few hours they work.

So lets say we jack it up to that rate. Now where are people going to get their hours? If the rate goes that high, the min. reqs. are going to go up too. You are going to have all these low timers with no place to go. They cant be instructors as flight schools want some serious bang for their buck. They cant go out to fly floats or MIFR yet cause they dont meet the insurance req. and they cant readily get those ratings and the hours they need because they just spent all that $ on their CPL.

I actually think that the PPL is a very important step and am not trying to belittle it at all you need your PPL before you can get your CPL. That said I am sure that highschool teachers make less than university proffessors.

In response to your theory that instructor should be paying a base wage that is independant of hours flown - Where do you propose that money should come from? You just conceded that there is next to no profit made on the a/c rental, so if the school is going to pay base then they 'll have to increase the a/c rental rate. Which works out the same as increasing the instructor rate for the student but does nothing for attracting/keeping good instructors.

My theory isnt perfect, but it seems more fair than the current system and more fair than the one proposed by many here. I would like to think of it as a compromise. The way the industry works right now, instructing is a stepping stone, you arent going to change that overnight.

Lol you must be a golfer "If it wasn't for us golfers you wouldn't have a job!" "hey rich F$%^ Face, if it wasnt for us you wouldnt have a golf course!" lol You cant use that Niss...its a lose lose regardless. Let it go.

Nope, dont like golf, but I do have a basic understanding of economics. If the price of flight training is so high that now only half of the current student base can afford it then that means we are going to need half the instructors. Who is going to pay your paycheque? The complaint here is that there is such a low $/hr wage, now if there is no one to pay it?

Again, I am all about rewarding hardwork, I do not belive in getting things for free, but forcing something like that fucks everything up and seems a bit unfair.I am not calling anyone lazy or trying to offend anyone, but if everyone else needs to get a second job because the payed hours are so low, why is it such an offensive thought to instructors?

[N2]

Well this just might mean more business for Durham Flight Center.

I think wages should be reflected in experience. I have a hard time believing that someone with a fresh class 4 is worth 30 per hour.

Oh by the way people who work the ramp should be in the neighborhood of 25 per hour now right? AME's say 85.00 per hour. Oh have a problem with that? Why is it only pilots who should prosper in this business?

Next time you take your car in for repair don’t complain about the price. Remember the mechanic who performed the work spent 5 times the amount of time training for his profession than did your class 4 flight instructor and is only making in the mid 20 per hour pay range.

[l_reason]

WOW, so many comments to respond to, and they all seem to be from Niss
Where to start?
Your mechanic analogy - Mechanics don't have to worry about not getting payed for a month because the summer thunderstorms are wreaking havock on flight conditions. Shops can tell clients "We can't get you in for a week. Your car is going to take a few days longer than expected. or Oh, we told you it'd cost X amount. Ya you're gonna hve to give us twice that much now that it's done." That's very different from the reality of being a flight instructor.

Then there's your question of how many people want to be career flight instructors. Me for one, and more than half of the other instructors I've worked with over the years. It is a profoundly fulfilling job. It's the lack of security and food on the table that changes most of our minds.

Your theory about getting a second job is completely unrealistic. In addition to the points others have made regarding needing to be at the airport 24/7, having another job is also dangerous. I know I tried it. Here's what my schedule looked like that summer. Up at 0600 - Shower, breakfast and check wx. 0700-0800 commute to the aiport. 0800-0900 fill in a/c logs, check messages, walk arround all a/c, clean windows, recheck wx, call book keeper with plane, pilot, and student hour updates. 0900 - hopefully fly, 1100- hopefully fly, 1300 eat my noodles, 1400 - hopefully fly. Inbetween times - sweep hangar, vacuum offices, dispatch students/renters, answer phones, deal with walk ins, call students trying to book flights with them. (I hope you've noticed there were only three billable hours in here, even if everyone showed up and the wx was good) 1600-1700 commute back into the city. 1700 - 1200 or 0400 Work a second job at a restaurant were I generally had to shut the place down because all the other servers had already worked a lunch shift and couldn't legally be asked to stay that late. On nights when I was lucky enough to get off before midnight I would then drive another hour each way to go back for one more hour of night flight. On those nights I would generally sleep on a couch in the back of the hangar before starting it all again the next day. If you don't see the absurdity of this set up I'll point out that I ended up hospitalized with bloodpoisoning (25% mortality rate) that the doc figured was likely linked to a non-existant immune system from sleep deprivation and stress, and that I once fell asleep on a flight (and more than once was in a catatonic state that was of sadly little use to my students - Yes I am ashamed of the product I was providing that summer but it was the only option that was available to me at the time) So no, "Go get another job you lazy bum." is not a solution.

Wow that takes me back to instructing!
I remember waiting at the flight school for a student one Saturday morning at 0800, he was a doctor and a former AMD. Once we started chatting about the new 172 he was about to get checked out in. He asked me when the last time I had a day off was. I told him I couldn't remember, maybe a month ago. He went to my CFI and told him that he was giving me 3 days off, because I was exhausted and shouldn't fly. If i were getting more then $20/ teaching hour maybe I could have afforded to be a safe instructor.

[Hedley]

Everyone that complains about the cost of flight instruction has clearly never instructed (and starved on what they were paid - $20/hr and 500 hours per year is only $10,000/yr).

Everyone that complains about the cost of maintenance has obviously never ordered parts or picked up a wrench.

Private aircraft owners can be such a pain, some mechanics just refuse to deal with them entirely. Can't blame them, really.

[mcrit]

Niss, TAL isn't paying the instructor $70/hr. They are paying them $30/hr. They gave them a raise because they were losing instructors to other jobs. So, the raise isn't artificially raising the wage, it's responding to supply and demand.
Also, where are you getting this $140 hr for the instructor?

[niss]

Someone here proposed paying the instructors $70/hr. That means that the FTUs would probably charge atleast double that. What percentage of what is charged for instructors now do the instructors get?

[Crazymax]

Someone here proposed paying the instructors $70/hr. That means that the FTUs would probably charge atleast double that. What percentage of what is charged for instructors now do the instructors get?

What I also said is that most of what you pay should go to the instructor. Not only half. So 70$/hr paid to the FTU should give the instructor 60$/hr (ideally)

Max

[niss]

And then the rentals shoot up high....FTUs are a business they are there to make money. Again no one would be able to afford it and there would be alot of unemployed instructors.

[Dominic220]

"So now a 200hr wonder has invested $32,850.00 and is still completely un employable as he has no ratings and has only flown a 172."

That isn't that big of a pill to swallow... considering float time is roughly $250+gst on a 172. ($300 on a 180 - vs. $300 on a seneca) (Shameless pluggage - Airhart Aviation in Kelowna, BC, and Aero Academy, London ontario)

"Oh by the way people who work the ramp should be in the neighborhood of 25 per hour now right"

...I so wish that was true... of even slinging bags paid more than 9.37/hr w/ $22 ripped off my pay every two weeks for a union that I saw do SFA

[Cat Driver]

Why don't schools in Canada use Cubs and Champs on floats for float plane training and save the student $75.00 to $100.00 per hour?

[Shiny Side Up]

niss you're missing the point.

First of all instructors aren't mechanics - but if they were and I put that $40,000 dollars that went into my eductation into being a mechanic instead - I could have myself a pretty nice shop set up.

Secondly, I can't belieeve that you place such a low value on what your own flight training is worth. $20 an hour? Even if that was the pay for their briefing time, you're saying that the instructor's portion of the enabing you to fly airplanes is worth only $400.

$400?!

Now you can't even compare what a good flight instructor does for you to any other occupation out there. The quality of their work reflects directly on you as a pilot. Of course unlike say a golf pro or other highly paid instructional people, them doing poorly at it doesn't result in your injury or death (if your golf pro has accidentally killed several of his clients you might have a more serious problem...) You're not just gaining the privelage to fly from this person niss - for at least a minimum of 45 hours of your time, your safety is entrusted to this person.

Lastly keep in mind that flying is still a privelage earned, not a right of your common joe. You don't buy flight lessons through walmart yet. You want it niss? You work for it. Think that its going to be too expensive for the common joe niss? Maybe. They're also selling new Cessnas, Pipers, Diamonds and Cirruses out there for upwards of $200,000 U.S. and sales are climbing. If you won't pay good money for flight training, there is people out there who will. And no, 10,000 dollars for a private licence isn't deterring them.

[Shiny Side Up]

Why don't schools in Canada use Cubs and Champs on floats for float plane training and save the student $75.00 to $100.00 per hour?

Simple - canadians are getting fatter and those airplanes can't get off the water with them on board anymore.

Seriously though as I put in the post above - there's people out there willing to pay the money these days who want the 172XPs and such to train on. If the market is there for it, why not?

[happily.retired]

Niss, Niss, Niss

Why is it such an offensive thougth that instructors get a second job?

Well, are you bothered by flying with an instructor who hasn't slept for more than four hours a night or had a day off in a month or more, and has a mostly empty bottle of caffein pills next to a bottle of pepto in their flight bag because if they got a prescription for the bloody ulcer you and this industry have given them they would lose their medical, and their job and then wouldn't even be able to pay for said medication anyways?

Do you have a problem with the person who brings you your beer making more money than the person who safely brings your sorry a$$ back to terra firma every flight?

I give up on you man. There is no convincing you that there is a problem with investing $50 K to make $10 K a year when you get done, that creating an indstry where only the most inexperienced are willing to teach, where everyone has to work 50 - 60 hours a week to get payed for 10 - 15, where the term danger pay causes uproarious laughter, where we all risk losing everthing in a heartbeat if we trip on a tie down and break our leg, where grown adults have to live at home or find a sugar momma to pay the bills.

All I can say is I hope you end up instructing for one of the companies who's $1,000 a month paychecks bounce on regular basis, and you've invested so much to get there that you can't even afford to move elsewhere for another job.

To the individual instucting our dear disgruntled Niss - I wish you luck. There's no greater challange than a student who chooses a conclusion first then looks for supporting evidence and ignores any contradictory information no matter how valid it may be. I wonder what ever happened to that one of mine. Hope he's still alive.