FairPlane

Had a meeting with Lembit Opik MP this week and will give you an update on that shortly.

In the meantime I really wanted to put this information on about a young lad called Tim, it is people like Tim that this campaign is about. Here is what Tim has to say…

“My name is Tim and I am 15 years old. I am currently in Year 11 at Lawrence Sheriff School, Rugby where I am taking my GCSEs next year. My ambition is to become a commercial pilot, something that I have wanted to do since I was six. For my 15th birthday in May, I was given a trial flying lesson, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and since then any money that I have goes towards more lessons with the aim of achieving my Private Pilot’s Licence to improve my chances of getting on a flying course when I’m older.

A few weeks ago I went with my parents to the Flyer Exhibition at London Heathrow. We soon found out that my choice of career is going to be a very expensive one. Not only do we have to pay for the flight training ourselves with no financial help from the government that is available to other students, but VAT is also levied on the cost of the training. The cost of the commercial flight training is around £80000. This means that at the age of 18, I will have to find a bank that will loan me this vast sum of money that I will have to start paying back when I finish the course, regardless of whether or not I have a job. The alternative is to see if my parents can help out in some way. This is very unfair as other students benefit from subsidised course fees, and government backed loans at a preferential rate. I feel that all students should be treated the same, whatever their choice of course or career.

A majority of the public are still under the impression that airlines train student pilots themselves, and we need to get the message across that this is not the case. There are many young people who are in the same position as me, and we need the government to act now.”

I can totally sympathise with Tim and his family as I had the same choices to make for my son, Oliver, we ended up taking an expensive second mortgage.

Here’s an update for you all following our meeting with the Minister for Skills and Innovation, David Lammy. Attending the meeting were myself, David Laws MP, Captain Alan Cooper (BALPA) and Paul Cooper (Oxford Aviation). We were allowed approximately half an hour and following the introductions I set out what our campaign was about and why I felt the current situation to be unfair to student pilots. Alan Cooper and Paul Cooper gave valuable insight regarding the VAT situation and how pilots are currently funded. I have to say that both the Misters Cooper and David Laws were very supportive and their input was invaluable.

The Minister talked much about other professions and how they compare to the Aviation industry and his main point seemed to be that the flight training schools were commercial as opposed to Universities. Eventually it became apparent that he was a supporter of the Alan Milburn “social mobility” initiative. It would appear that there has been a forum set up to further this aspect and an invitation for the aviation industry to take part was extended to us.

The possiblity of finding a way to make part of the flight training a recognised qualification was also discussed and Mr Lammy confirmed that if this could be done the Government could look at a way of helping with funding for this qualification.

So all in all it would appear that the door is open for discussion and consideration. We will keep you posted as we progress.

Attached is a photo of us following the meeting. left to right is David Laws MP, Captain Alan Cooper, Jane Desforges and Paul Cooper

Regarding the VAT situation we will have to make a separate case to The Treasury on this.

So not quite the heavily slammed door I had anticipated or prepared for, my only concern is if the voice we appear to have been given becomes mute with the forthcoming general election. That said if a door is opened then we absolutely must go through it.

First of all a huge thank you to everyone who has signed their support – keep those signatures coming.
Please do have a look at the piece posted here that Lembit Opik MP wrote inthe Flight Training News. Lembit has also agreed to put some questions to the PM at Prime Ministers question time for us.
Things are moving on now and we finally have a date to meet the Minister for Innovation and Skills and will be attending this on the 1st December, will post again after this to let you all know how it went. Both BALPA and Oxford Aviation will be attending this meeting with me so big thanks to both of them.
I went to the Flyer Exhibition at Heathrow last Saturday to drum up support for the campaign and met some wonderful people there. I really do have to thank Flight Training News who allowed me to take part of their stand for this purpose and gave me valuable pieces of information which will help the campaign.
To finish off with, the last thing to bring to your attention is that we have posted a letter on the “support us” page which you can download and send to your MP, we have even given you a link to find out who your MP is if you are not sure, we couldn’t have made it easier!, so please keep up your support and help me to persuade the government to make changes to the way student pilots fund their training as well as removing the VAT from their fees, it really is time that there was an even playing field regardless of your financial background.
Thanks again everyone, keep putting the word out there.
Until next time
Jane

Flight Training News have just published this piece by Lembit Opik (© Flight Training News 2009) about the Fairplane campaign.