The Irish Aviation Authority will fund the flight costs of a number of the student pilots stranded in Florida in a dispute involving a Waterford-based flight school.
Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar confirmed this evening the authority would fund the travel costs of the ‘self-financing’ students who had an existing contract with the Pilot Training College and who wished to leave the US.
The school at the centre of the financial row has admitted some students will have to pay extra fees to complete their training.
Some 80 students, 34 of them Irish, paid up to €86,000 to train with the college. They had been receiving training in the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), which had a contract with the Waterford school, but due to a financial dispute, the Florida centre has stopped their training.
In a statement last night, PTC said it had secured training places for a number of students with an alternative training company, CAE Oxford Aviation Academy, and these students would not incur additional costs.
However, the records of a remaining 71 students were still being assessed and it would be the end of this week before the college would be able to tell these students if they would be made an offer of training.
Mr Varadkar said that while he, the Department and the IAA did not have any involvement in, or responsibility for, the contractual arrangements between PTC and its students, he regretted the difficulties being experienced by students and their families and has agreed with the IAA to fund the flight costs.
“This offer is being made as a gesture of goodwill and is made without prejudice. It only applies to self-financing students who are unable to complete their current pilot training in Florida.
“The offer is for the cost of a one-way airline ticket for those students,” the Minister said.
Such students who had already left the US since June 26th, when the IAA was first informed that the Florida Institute of Technology was ceasing all training activities in Florida for PTC, may also reclaim the cost of a one-way economy class airline ticket.
Mr Varadkar said the offer will remain available to students until August 1st.
Those who wished to avail of the offer should contact the IAA on at 01 603 1111 from tomorrow morning, Wednesday July 11th.
Wesley Sumner of the Florida Institute said today the body was trying to help those who could move to other flight training programmes in Florida, and to help those who could not, to return to Ireland.
The institute had continued to provide the students with with housing, food and transport and would do so until August 1st.
He said he was hopeful that many more students would be able to stay and train in Florida and the priority was to assist them.
Some 64 students had contracts with Air Astana and 25 were “self-pay” students who were committed to staying.
The Florida Institute would offer “whatever kind of pricing that we can afford” in order to keep the students there.
Mr Sumner said he recognised it had been “a gut-wrenching experience” for the students and the institute wanted to help them in any way that it could to make sure that they were successful.
In a statement last night, the students said they were “dismayed” with the latest update from PTC Waterford which “yet again has failed to meet out expectations”.
A primary source of this frustration was PTC’s claim that an alternative training arrangement with the Oxford academy had been found.
They noted the conditions imposed, and said the offer lacked any assurance of continuation of training.