? Regarding Flight School Rates

Murdoughnut

Murdoughnut

Well sized member
... So I've been trying to finally finish up my IR, but our club's only instructor has been tied up with his wife's health problems, so I've been forced to rent from the local flight school. As bad as it is paying flight school rates when you co-own your own perfectly good aircraft, I've noticed that I'm getting charged ground school rates for the time we're not in the air - and not in ground school.

For instance, I had a flight last week where I arrived, picked up the keys, did the pre-flight, flew, and came back long enough for the instructor to sign my log book. I was charged 0.5 hours of ground. The day before I was charged 1.0 hours of ground, when we probably sat and chatted for about 15-minutes.

Is this normal now? Back in the day I was only charged ground fees if you actually received ground instruction. Just curious.
 
You should only be charged for the time you are with your instructor. For example, if your instructor greets you at 12:00 and finishes your logbook and debriefing at 1:30, and you put 1.0 on the hobbs, then it should be 1.0 flight and 0.5 ground....at my school they call this a "ground fee" since it is not actually ground instruction, but rather time the instructor spent with you and should get paid for. This covers time spent briefing, preflight, logbook, debriefing, etc. However, if you get the keys, preflight alone, and the instructor meets you when you are ready to start up, then spends 5 minutes signing your logbook and saying "nice job today" and is charging you for an hour of ground, that is not right. In that case is sounds like he is charging you from the time you walk in the door until the time you leave, not the time he spent with you.
 
tjvpa28 said:
You should only be charged for the time you are with your instructor. For example, if your instructor greets you at 12:00 and finishes your logbook and debriefing at 1:30, and you put 1.0 on the hobbs, then it should be 1.0 flight and 0.5 ground....at my school they call this a "ground fee" since it is not actually ground instruction, but rather time the instructor spent with you and should get paid for. This covers time spent briefing, preflight, logbook, debriefing, etc. However, if you get the keys, preflight alone, and the instructor meets you when you are ready to start up, then spends 5 minutes signing your logbook and saying "nice job today" and is charging you for an hour of ground, that is not right. In that case is sounds like he is charging you from the time you walk in the door until the time you leave, not the time he spent with you.
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Yeah, it seems strange. It's like they're billing you for the block of time versus the instructor actually being with you. On top of that, the plane I flew the other day needed a VOR check - so we had to taxi out to the VOR checkpoint on the other side of the field, and then taxi to the active. That was probably .2 out of my pocket. Bleh - I don't see how some of you guys do it.
 
Flying club with only one instructor? Sounds like a bottlenck to me!
No way I'd pay regular rates, I'm sorry if the man has a sick wife, but business is business.
Paying for ground you're not recieving isn't kosher either. I understand the CFI has billing, scheduling, lesson planning and perhaps record-keeping to account for, but not an hour's worth!
 
Talk to the CFI about it. If he's gouging you and won't give you a straight explanation, I'd strongly recommend taking your business elsewhere, at least to another CFI at that school.

It may just be that the flite skool has a "minimum ground time" charge regardless of how long the actual briefing is.
 
texas_pilot said:
Flying club with only one instructor? Sounds like a bottlenck to me!
No way I'd pay regular rates, I'm sorry if the man has a sick wife, but business is business.
Paying for ground you're not recieving isn't kosher either. I understand the CFI has billing, scheduling, lesson planning and perhaps record-keeping to account for, but not an hour's worth!
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There are really 3, but one doesn't instruct (he's a full-time corporate pilot), and the other lost his medical. There's 15 of us in the club, so yeah, it makes it tough.

I've never understood why, but our insurance and club rules prevent hiring and flying with an instructor outside of the club in club aircraft.
 
This is standard at some schools to cover logbook, paperwork, preflight, etc... Look at it this way: You will either pay the .2 at the current rate, or they will raise the instructor rate to cover it.
 
Out of curiousity, what do CFIs charge/get paid for their hourly rate these days?

I remember I used to get $20/hr back in the early 90's.

I believe a CFI should get $100 hour. If you look at all other professional services, thats about right.....if not still too low.


Heck, my wife wants to hire a decorator who charges $95 an hour. And don't get me started on what it costs to get a plumber or handyman out here.
[My wife makes more than me so I can't really say no to the decorator. Well I did but.....]
 
Mad Doggy Dog said:
Out of curiousity, what do CFIs charge/get paid for their hourly rate these days?

I remember I used to get $20/hr back in the early 90's.

I believe a CFI should get $100 hour. If you look at all other professional services, thats about right.....if not still too low.


Heck, my wife wants to hire a decorator who charges $95 an hour. And don't get me started on what it costs to get a plumber or handyman out here.
[My wife makes more than me so I can't really say no to the decorator. Well I did but.....]
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Club CFI charges $35, flight school CFI charges $41.

$100 would put that CFI out of work - a person's salary can only be as high as people are willing to pay. I do freelance statistical work and usually only bring in $25-$35 an hour for it.
 
Flying is too much of a hobby to be paying someone $100 an hour although I like the idea... Instructors still have to compete with things like boating and other recreational stuff.

If you aren't happy with how much your instructor charges you then I'd get a good explanation from him... If its not good enough then I'd get a new one... Especially if he charged you 1 hour ground when 15 minutes of the time he chatted with you.
 
Murdoughnut said:
Yeah, it seems strange. It's like they're billing you for the block of time versus the instructor actually being with you. On top of that, the plane I flew the other day needed a VOR check - so we had to taxi out to the VOR checkpoint on the other side of the field, and then taxi to the active. That was probably .2 out of my pocket. Bleh - I don't see how some of you guys do it.
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You shouldn't be paying for the time to do a VOR check, unless you are being taught how to do a VOR check. Here we would just write that up as mx and the CFI would get paid while the student would not be charged. I would ask for a breakdown of how you are being charged.
 
Murdoughnut said:
Club CFI charges $35, flight school CFI charges $41.

$100 would put that CFI out of work - a person's salary can only be as high as people are willing to pay. I do freelance statistical work and usually only bring in $25-$35 an hour for it.
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I agree. I would have zero hrs of dual at a hundred an hour. It sure wold be nice tho! :)
 
I've had some situations when students blocked me out for 2.5 hours, showed up late, preflighted (should have been done before our time block), then dragged their feet on the phone or something. When we finished flying I billed my ground time to include all of that wasted time when I could have been with someone else.

If the student is ready on time, and we only use a portion of the blocked out time, I'll only bill for the exact time. The exact time does include the paperwork I need to do before or after flying, though.

If I'm late or need to divide attention, I'll reduce my billing, too.

If your CFI is overbilling you, or you feel he is, talk to him. Good communication is key in that situation.
 
upup89 said:
Flying is too much of a hobby to be paying someone $100 an hour although I like the idea... Instructors still have to compete with things like boating and other recreational stuff.

If you aren't happy with how much your instructor charges you then I'd get a good explanation from him... If its not good enough then I'd get a new one... Especially if he charged you 1 hour ground when 15 minutes of the time he chatted with you.
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I agree with that too. I make it a point to explain the charges for ground instruction. I also make it a point to round down to the nearest .1 and take off about the same to compensate for any bs session we have.
 
In everyday business relations, my opinion is that you should pay for no more than the hours of service delivered. 0.2 ground is 12 minutes. You can ask a lot of questions in 12 minutes. If overhead is to be covered then rates should be raised. When I was training, my instructors always told the biller (if there was anything other than Hobbs time - mostly 0), "Hobbs plus 2 10ths" then we proceeded to debrief which invariably exceeded the 0.2. To this day I pay it forward to my students. Answers to questions are free. I know of other instructors that thought they were all that and ... With military precision they began the Timex on the hour, stopped it when the student walked out the door, subtracted the Hobbs time and voila, ground time. IMO, he was a pompous ass. Let's face it; it costs enough to learn to fly. Nickel and diming won't make anyone rich.

BTW $100/hour for a flight instructor? I wish. That might make a business case for becoming an instructor.
 
I make it very clear to my students that if we are booked from 12-2, that means I expect them to be ready to begin a lesson at 12...Not start pre-flighting at 12. I hold the right to bill from the time we shake hands hello, to the time we shake hands goodbye...$40/hour is very little for a professional service.
 
The only way that I charge ground is if I am actually giving ground instruction. I include de-briefing after the flight as ground instruction, which might be .1 or .2 max. Charging you for an hour of ground when you talked for 15 minutes is crazy.

Oh yeah our instructor rate is 45/hr
 
Find an independent instructor, fly in your own airplane. I charge $35/hr for hobbes time and $25/hr for ground time, and that is scheduled ground time. If there is a problem where I sit around for half an hour each day doing preflight then I may inform them that either come in early or I'm going to charge ground for that -- but I've not had to do that yet. Preflight brief and postflight brief are ground but thats maybe .1 and .1 on either end. Maybe .2 on the debrief.

I've done a few cross countries with a student lately and he always ends up buying me lunch too and I tend not to charge for that time either even if we do go over ground during lunch. I don't know -- as a CFI you have to build up trust, I guess -- but at the same time you want to be compensated for your skills and expertise. It's a fine line to walk.
 
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