1. You don’t have to stay with your VET-FEE CPL school for your MEA Class Rating & Instrument Rating training. Despite what they may tell you, MEA/MEIR are separate courses to CPL and are not integrated. Many will try to sign you up for a “double diploma” from the outset (i.e. CPL & MEIR), but that is their way of tying you into their system as they don’t want you taking your money elsewhere for your advanced training.
  2. MEA/MEIR training does not need to cost $40K-$50K, even on quality machinery like Barons. It can be done for $30K or less, even on some of the best equipped and presented Barons in the country.
  3. MEA/MEIR training does not need to take 4-6 months. It can be done in 3-4 weeks if the training provider has a stable and adequate roster of quality staff that actually enjoy working where they do and are not stretched across unmanageable numbers of students doing all sorts of training, and has access to a quality fleet of reliable and company owned aircraft rather than a merry-go-round of cross hired and/or unreliable machines. If a flight school is constantly losing their instructors (and students) to their competitors, it might be worth a finding out why that is happening. Even more so if their own employees are going elsewhere to do training that their own employer can offer!
  4. Diploma qualifications are not required for employment with any GA or airline employer in Australia or elsewhere (including the Qantas group!). This system is time and cost inefficient, and survives in aviation only as a revenue model for the schools that offer them. Our graduates are now working for Qantas Mainline, Jetstar, Virgin Australia, Air North, Alliance, Air New Zealand, REX, Qantaslink, National Jet Express, RFDS, numerous US-based jet operators (e.g. Kallita, GoJet, Frontier) etc etc. You don’t need a Diploma of Aviation for any of these jobs!
  5. It does matter where you train, and what aircraft you train on. GA employers are particularly interested in this as you will cost them more money in training if you have trained on irrelevant aircraft (especially Diamonds) and with instructors that are not able to provide you with real-world commercial insights, and as such you will not be their first choice when they are recruiting.
  6. There are alternatives to VET loans if funding assistance is required. We can offer a solution that does not result in inflated prices to cover the administrative and other costs associated with the VET system, does not index to inflation, and does not incur interest.

We’re biased of course and would love you to train with us. Either way we recommend that you consult widely before choosing where to complete your post-CPL advanced training – talk to your colleagues working in the industry (at all levels), talk to previous students of your short-listed schools, read reviews (or ask for opinions) on the popular aviation social media pages, and talk to industry employers, but take what your current school tells you with a grain of salt! We’ve heard all sorts of myths and mistruths from students that have left these schools and come to train with us – it is not surprising that these schools don’t seem to like us much and are happy to offer a negative and often misleading opinion to anyone that will listen!