Flight students say they have lost thousands of pounds in pre-paid course fees after Tayside Aviation went into administration.
At least 35 students from the Dundee flight school have been impacted – some of whom have lost tens of thousands of pounds.
The news broke on Thursday, which has immediately resulted in 22 job losses.
Christopher Redmond, 24, says he had around £23,000 of unused, pre-paid fees in his account, which he was locked out of after the firm’s administration was announced last week.
He has been forced to move out of his Dundee flat and back into his parent’s home in Glasgow, the same house they re-mortgaged last year to pay his advanced fees.
His parents are now looking at their pension to see if they can help with fees for him to continue his flying lessons elsewhere.
Fellow student Julie Whyte, 28, is having to move to England to continue her commercial pilot training.
Tayside Aviation, based at Dundee Airport, provides courses from private to commercial licences and has delivered the RAF air cadet pilot scheme for more than 30 years.
Tony Banks, who founded Balhousie Care Group, acquired the Dundee flight school last year.
£49,000 student flying bill
Christopher was in his second year of training to become a commercial pilot with Tayside Aviation.
He has already completed his first licence and 14 exams – passing the most recent exam in December 2021 and having spent a further £36,000 to get to this point.
That is on top of the £23,000 he paid in advance and is no longer able to access.
The training he has already completed lasts only three years before it expires and he has already faced challenges with delays due to Covid.
He said: “I had to save up for a couple of years to afford the course and my parents had to re-mortgage their house.
“It could be the end of my career if I can’t get it back because I don’t have the time to save up again because of the expiry date.
“My parents are now looking at the possibility of getting another loan or re-mortgaging again – my dad is looking at his pension.
“I don’t want them to have to do that but I’ve come this far and they don’t want me to lose it all now.”
Moving to England
Julie Whyte, who was also training to become a commercial pilot, moved to Dundee from Stonehaven to do her course with Tayside Aviation.
Having trained full-time for two years, she was just six months away from completing her course, and has paid around £38,000 in fees to date.
Julie had opted to pay for the course module by module and has lost £2,500 from a pre-paid module (total cost £8,100) she was three-quarters of the way through.
She said: “I only had six flights left until I was ready for the test for that module.
“I’m going to ACS in Perth to pick up where I left off, but I’ll have to pay for what I do there, on top of a £500 registration fee and I’ll probably have to do extra flying lessons to show them what I can do.
“There are all sorts of added extras too, thing like driving to Perth every day.”
Julie has managed to secure a spot at an aviation school in England to finish her training and will have to re-locate to do so.
Students offered support
Blair Nimmo and Geoff Jacobs, from Interpath Advisory, were appointed joint administrators.
A spokesperson for the joint administrators said: “Following their appointment late on Thursday afternoon, the joint administrators have been working at pace to understand the position regarding the Company’s assets.
“This includes collating a summary of all assets, as well as seeking to understand whether certain assets are subject to finance agreements or have shared ownership.
“Even at this early stage in the administration process, we have received a significant number of enquiries regarding the assets and would like to advise all parties that the joint administrators will record all interest and will be in touch as soon as further information becomes available.
“In addition, the joint administrators understand that students may be obtaining support from other parties. To this end, we will seek to support the students as far as we can with the recovery of training and other records.”
