Four student pilots at Blue Bird Flight Academy in Chilliwack, B.C. are demanding refunds, claiming their training has been unduly delayed and interrupted. The students, all from other countries claimed that the school’s scheduling and aircraft deployment led to large gaps in their training and resulted in them having to re-do some parts of the flying. Others said appropriate aircraft were not available as promised. The school’s operations manager Jaspreet Sodhi told the CBC that training has been suspended because of COVID-19 and he rejected the claims of the students.
The CBC said Sodhi blamed the delays on the students themselves and declined to respond to questions about repetitious training and instructor absences. “If someone did not obtain a pilot’s licence, that is at their own expense because we provided the service and the training as per our contract and our policies,” the CBC quoted Sodhi as saying. Meanwhile, the company changed its name from Blue Bird Flight Academy to Sky Hawk Aviation but Sodhi told the CBC that they remain in business even though they no longer have any airplanes or instructors because of the pandemic.