Comments

"If I had to reduce the findings to one statement it would be that customers expect to be treated well and to get what they're paying for, which is to get the thrill and reward of learning to fly. They should expect nothing less." I appreciated your use of the term customer, as it speaks to a particular – if not explicitly stated – viewpoint on student pilots. The students need to be understood as both learners, but also as customers. Something I would term “student-customer.” Ultimately, the problem is not cost per se, but rather value to the customer. Value creation for the customer remains transparent to the student, and incomprehensible to the flight school – precisely because the flight school treats students as students only, and students view themselves as customers first, and students second (they can’t help it – they’re society programs them to think that way). Consequently, flight schools generally do not focus on 2 critical areas of Value Creation: 1. For student-customers: flight training programs of the highest quality and value 2. For CFIs: fostering a safe, secure, professionally challenging, and rewarding flight school environment – which in turn helps to create value for the customer. Once flight schools get it through their heads that these two areas must be addressed, then student-customer (note the purposeful inclusion of the word "customer" rather than simply "student") retention will increase. Until then, my best wishes to AOPA's newest endeavor. I'm afraid I remain skeptical.