How AELO Swiss Academy dubiously kicked me off their school - and took thousands from me
To mention: all my flying and theory results were just fine. AELO acknowledged this as well. PM me if you have any questions about this flight school.
It started bad already. I was first put into an old hotel (they call the “residence”) where the kitchen is filthy, people scream in the hallways and where you don’t experience privacy at all.
I complained about this, and I got to move to a nicer, newer place, where I had to share a +- 16m2 room with a (nice) guy.
Nothing too bad yet, but all the theory and practical planning was super chaotic and AELO was constantly disregarding their promises. When we started, they boasted about “combining theory with practice” and wanted us to start flight training in August already.
Months and months went by, and we had only started flying around December. AELO told us to have patience, and tried to come up with nonsense reasons to make us stop asking when we would fly. That is just one of the many things they broke their promises about.
Mind you, after starting flying, many people have had not flown for months, and were only getting flights after they felt what was like begging. Their 16 month “guarantee” is not a “guarantee”, but a simple marketing trick to lure you in. Don’t fall for it!
The conditions of getting paid €1000 every 10 days of delay are very difficult to reach. The people of my class that flew very enthusiastically took like 21 months to finish, excluding the MCC. The other ones will take months longer.
Even the theory was chaotic and last minute. They would have “theory release” sessions that were planned a month before the real theory exams, even when the lessons of the subjects were not even finished yet! And trust me, not a lot of people could do it on their own.
There was almost always some help or explanation involved. Afterwards, they stated that I was “cheating”, even though it’s not an official exam.
Mind you I passed all the exams with 91% average.
Back to the room: so I requested a room alone, which the employees including the owner at this school accepted for a small surcharge.
I moved into that particular single room. Around a few weeks later, AELO sends me an invoice for double the amount, saying that it’s “unfair” for me to have the room at the said price, and I had to pay double or I had to move away.
10 minutes after I refused to move away, the owner said to me “your training ends in a week, good luck for your career”. This caused a year of delay for me.
They also refuse to elaborate their invoices riddled with spelling mistakes (like I’m used to from them), even with an “overhead fee charge” of around €5000.
There’s no elaboration on other charges, such as “kick off package” on which I suspect they overcharged me. See the uploaded picture.
Why was I kicked off you ask? The owner of the school said because my classmates thought “I was maybe not a good pilot” and “I don’t fit in the picture”. In my recollection, the owner literally said ‘the wedding won’t happen’ when explaining why I was removed. Extremely unprofessional in my opinion.
AELO, after my email refusing to move out, cancelled all my flights and exams. They told about a theory exam moment in between then and the next session (they allowed me to continue theory suddenly), to which I called the FOCA. After it became apparent I called the FOCA, the owner became furious and blocked me.
The owner even laughed at me during a phone call, trying to resolve the situation.
After my situation, I hear the people of the school are scared to bring criticism to the school. If you criticise the school, you will get trouble. Even a guy asking about safety of planes there got kicked off for “asking too many questions” according to fellow people at the flight school.
I am currently pursuing legal action to recover my losses.