Student Association

dakovich

Well-Known Member
any Panamers out there interested in starting an ACTIVE!!!! student association at the school?? i've been debating it for the past couple months and i think it would really help out the students as well as the school in terms of knowing what their customers really want and how they feel. give a way to voice student concern besides just a "comment box" hanging outside the cheif instructors office. i hate when students get to the point that their only way of asking a question about their training is to have to complain to someone in charge. and students are sometimes led to do that because its the only way to try and get a clear answer. so, if students had a group of other students/instructors/staff that they knew they could go to for answers it would make things run so much more smoothly for everyone here. not many people know who to go to for answers to questions. and lots of people have questions, and they don't want to bitch to get an answer they just want an honest explanation to things. they (Panam) need to promote a better relationship with the students/customer. happy students make happy customers, happy customers make good publicity, good publicity makes for more customers. easy enough concept. the school and the students will benefit, and other potential students will see that and want to come here more and more. that should also be a concern for students because one day you'll be an instructor here and the more students they pull in the the better it is for you in your phase of becoming a professional pilot. its all cyclical and stuff ya know. anyway, i've babbled long enough...give some feedback on the idea...even if you don't attend Panam i'd appreciate ideas. thanx all
 
You just don't get it do you??? You're not a customer anymore. They already have your money; you're just one of their biaaatches now. Run your idea by administration though; I'm sure they will consider it a good reason to raise the cost of your tuition again. Too bad too, because you shouldn't have to worry about that crap and spend 70 thousand when trying to learn how to fly.
 
Hey Dak,

We tried that in AZ. It went pretty well as far as being organized. We had speakers from each class meet with the administration once a week, sometimes once every other week. They would give feedback that other students request be brought up, and it was done very professional. One problem though- No matter what was said, all the administration did was say uh huh. Not ONE thing was done or fixed. They had excuses for every common complaint the student had. So we all just gave it up cause it was pointless. THEY WOULDN'T LISTEN TO ANYTHING!!
 
i'll just give the latest cluster • of a decission i've seen made around here...this one really had people wondering what busniess savy jack-ass was calling the shots on this one:


long story short, CRM training priced at about $1990 for ground school, instruction, and AST HAWK 300 sim time. sim cost $68 per hour(almost average cost for this type sim). you log 20, but only pay for 10...take turns playing Pilot flying(PIC), pilot not flying(SIC) roles, and only pay when you are sitting left seat.

turns out someone didn't notice that when you finish the training you end up only spending aorund maybe $1500. someone somewhere screwed up and put $1990 on the borchures for the cost when it should really be $1500.

so what was the well thought out idea to levy the situation....of course, lets more than double the cost of the AST HAWK per hour to somewhere near $150 an hour. so, now our AST Hawk with like 10,000 hours (old old old) cost more than flying a real airplane in terms of hourly rental rates. oh, and thats before the cost of the instruction time also. what jack ass is thinking this crap up?!?!?!?!?!?!? if you want to make up for the $490 typo, and if you've got some kind of business sense, then add cost somewhere else ...you don't add the cost to the most visable asset of the program by more than doubaling the cost of the sim and at the same time being 3 times as expensive as any other AST HAWK per hour in the united states. prospective students will see that and say "what kind of • is this? screw this place i'll go up the street for that price". increase the gound school by a couple bucks, add something to the course that is cheap for the school to do but gets the consumer to pay more money and he'll be happy to do that because of his/her percieved benefit of said added product. not to mention JUST FIX THE DAMN COST ON THE BROCHURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i know this is read by people at Panam, and i hope they realize what a mistake this disicisson was. i love this school but this was a ridiculus way to go about adjusting cost, and all it did was throw mud in the face of all students that go to this school, as well as all the potential students who would like to come here to go after their dream of flying. this is the kind of thing that a little dialouge could have easily solved. and it won't be the last mistake if some kind of dialouge isn't created between the students and the people who run the school. you want to know what will draw in more students, more students willing to pay $80,000 to come to this school, FOR YOUR SAKE JUST ASK THE HUNDEREDS OF STUDENTS WHO ARE ALREADY ENROLLED HERE! i for one want to see this place as popular with people as it can be, i want to work here and be somewhat proud of my employer when that time comes...guess what, i'm not the only student that wants to lend a hand in helping this school achieve better status, just let us help a little, or at least give us a forum for discussion on topics such as this.

Mark M.
 
I can bet you it was the same brilliant person (
crazy.gif
) that put together their marketing materials. I don't know if you guys have taken a look at it lately, but the copy they sent me has LOTS of spelling and grammer errors!!! Now I am by no means a walking library of verbiage, but the information packet that you send out to try and ask people to spend $60-$70 thousand dollars should atleast be proofread by somebody!!!!!!!

Pointed to a lack of professionalism to me. Just my opinion though.....
 
the original problem was with how CRM was charged to us. Igot the explanation of the CRM cost and it makes a lot more sense now. we were just given a real strange explanation at first but now it makes a lot more sense. seems to be an honest mistake when it came to charges and when it got fixed it wasn't explained very well so a bunch of students were caught off guard with the changes and confused by what happened. everythings in order with the charges. must admit i was one of those very confused and upset students in the situation, and a good initial explaination would have settled everything. just a communication problem, no biggie. i just feel like an ass for getting all upset in the post, not very professional. i let the situation dictate what i was writing and made some rash remarks.
 
Believe me Dak, it's been done before. I assume that you saw on the brochure 20 hrs @ $68, when you're actually paying 10 hrs @ $136. It works out the same, it's just the way that PAIFA does the billing.

One thing I don't understand is why they raised the price of the sims this month. They raised the aircraft prices 5% and the instructors 10% because of increase in insurance rates since 9/11. But why did they raise the sim prices, too?? Must be because of all the times I crashed the sim.
 
We just elected 2 student reps in Phoenix. We've had student reps the whole time I've been here, but it's not marketed too well and no one knows that reps exist. With the election fresh in our minds, maybe we can take advantage of the student reps to present issues and hopefully management will listen and make some changes.
 
yeah, i just heard that Phx has a kind of student association. but over here, if there is one, its invisible. what does the association in Phx do?? are there regular meetings, or meetings when certain issues arise, is there contact information made available for students so that they can communicate with these student leaders? hows it work?have they considered getting reps from different sections of the school, including instructors, privates, inst., etc.. i hope it isn't just two people that get elected and hold a title for the sake of holding a title.
 
yep, that last line pretty much nailed it DAK! They don't get much done, at least they didn't when I went there, and I seriously doubt things changed
 
we've got a good sized group of guys i fly with here now that are super motivated to get something together for the students. hope we get a chance to do it.
 
Hey Dak,

They call it a "Student Forum". From what I understand (I've only been here a month) it consists of 2 students and 2 or 3 people from admin. I've heard (but don't know for sure) that in the past they "student forum" has brought up concerns and the admin just sits there and says that none of the things they are talking about will change. Also, they say the student forum is just for people if they don't want to bring up issues to admin themselves. Just remember- I've only been here a month and don't claim to know it all. This is just what I have heard. Maybe other Phoenix PanAm ers have some imput.
 
Actually that AST Hawk at FPR is pretty new. It had some teething troubles (yokes fall off on rotation) but they tried to fix it up. The price hike is purely to gouge the customer. BTW, who the hell wants to be in a student association? Raise too many waves and kiss a CFI job goodbye.
 
The student associtaion was created so as to let the students know that the administration cares about your needs. You go to your student rep and do all the complaining to him and then he will tell us of your needs. The administration is just trying to cut down on the number of students comming to them with complaints, so with a middle man, all they will have is one person representing all of the complaints. Of cours the administration doesn't care about you or your complaints. I know someone who complained about somthing to the chief flight instructor and he told the student that if you don't like it go to Westwind. They just don't care about the student. One would think that since upper managment is so money hungry that they would not like to see one student leave the program, but since I have seen so many leave, it proves they just don't care about three students walking out the door when five new students just walked in. That is stupid buisness practice.
 
Hey joe blow, based on your pic, your instructor must teach from the back seat eh. That is, if weight and balance allows!
As for the student association. Yup, until you come up with an idea that will make them more money, you will get empty nods and sympathetic facial expressions. But nothing else.
 
A student association is what Pan Am needs, the only problem is that everyone is too scared to start one!! Oh if I complain I won't get a job. Who wants a job at Pan Am? How many hours of flight time are you going to get? They can't even with all their advertising get in more than 5 students a month. Excuse me let me do the math for all you geniuses out there..... 5 New students in this month and 35 people currently taking CFI?????? When all those people get hired as CFI's how many students are they going to get ? Will three instructors share one student??? You guys need to open your eyes this is a sinking ship. They have no power over the students, they can't get you a job so fight for what you are paying for and don't get treated like a punk!!
 
5 new students per month??? 35 CFI students??? Where did you get those numbers from? This month in Phoenix we had around 8 students start 10/21 with IR training and 12 are starting 10/28, most of those are PPLs. There may be around 15 CFI students right now, I don't know the exact number. With an average of 3 months for the CFI program, that means about 5 graduate per month. The more accurate ratio is 5 new CFIs and 20 new students every month. Plus, a couple instructors will leave for the airlines.
 
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