The CAA rarely act against those who pay them licensing fees, especially if a particular practice is endemic in the industry…
Very good post Cobalt I couldn’t agree more
I think the whole lots a bit of a joke. I once worked for an organisation that won quite a large contract off another FTO who then refused to release the training records. They also refused to release all ground examination results as well. The national aviation authority were contacted and they did sweat FA about it.
…and to add to that:
All of the above applies regardless of whether the new ATO has the training records from the previous ATO, with the caveat that if they wrote into their approved manuals that they need the records, they have to stick to that. Some ATOs have written silly things in their manuals.
Peter wrote:
Surely, if you have some of the required hours in your logbook already, and the new school does a “check flight” with you, that will settle any doubts about whether your previous training was ok, crap, or whatever. Any instructor who has even half a brain will tell within a 1hr flight which of the required exercises you need further training on. In fact in most cases you can tell before lining up on the runway
A decent ATO with sensible FI will do that and stamp your logbook entries and put you to the test when they feel ready, practically the whole dual syllabus can be ticked in as low as 10h, the rest will be just your fun with an FI in RHS or supervised solo…
A rubbish ATO will make you life harder later and even if you legally force them to accept your previous hours, they will make your training miserable: so not a good start !
it’s also up to the new ATO to accept the old one’s training
All this stuff looks and smells like some cheese in a fridge whose power got turned off a year ago.
Surely, if you have some of the required hours in your logbook already, and the new school does a “check flight” with you, that will settle any doubts about whether your previous training was ok, crap, or whatever. Any instructor who has even half a brain will tell within a 1hr flight which of the required exercises you need further training on. In fact in most cases you can tell before lining up on the runway 
If the new school could just say “sorry you need to do the 30hrs in your PPL logbook again because everybody knows your previous school was crap [which may be true]” that is blatently exploitative, for most students it is an abuse of monopoly position, and, as Charlie Romeo says above, is a good case for getting a lawyer involved, which may actually be worth doing because flight training is bloody expensive. But then the new school will hate you, which is not good either.
I changed schools and the old school “lost” my exam passes… but I lost 10-20hrs anyway because that flying was in a PA38 and I continued in a C152. So changing schools is bad enough in itself, without getting shafted on the logbook contents.
I am not doubting that there is some legal support for “it’s also up to the new ATO to accept the old one’s training” (I don’t know the regs) but it is like saying that one Part M outfit is entitled to not believe signoffs etc done by another Part M outfit. That is not the case; if it was, the whole airworhiness business would collapse because it all relies on being entitled to trust the previous (certified!) company. We can argue it is a house of cards but hey this is Europe and that is how Europe works. Authorisation is vested in an approved organisation. End of argument, by definition. So I would be amazed if one school was legally able to refuse old logbook entries assuming they are signed off individually, or supported by your training record. What they are entitled to do, at any time, is require re-training, and that happens all the time anyway because e.g. you get a few weeks of crap wx during which everybody loses a load of currency so they need extra training. Hence I mention a test flight at the new school.
Formally required flight hours can certainly be transferred, but in addition to the old ATO’s releasing the papers, as CR rightfully mentioned, it’s also up to the new ATO to accept the old one’s training. I tried to transfer my CPL training from a totally disappointing ATO to an excellent one, and the head of the latter said: “Sorry, we cannot accept responsibility for that training. You said it yourself they are a shitty outfit, and I agree”. It didn’t upset me the least because he was obviously right.
Actually it is possible, but requires cooperation of both authorities and ATOs involved at either end.
Any of these can be s showstopper. A friend of mine experienced this,as he switched ATOs mid-training. The old ATO made a fuss of handing over his training record to the new one, hampering his progress to the point that he went to court over this. No state authority to blame for this, because he trained for the fATPL, which is governed by the LBA anyway.
The whole thing of state aviation authorities applies to plain PPL and below only.
ArcticChiller wrote:
Germany it isn’t possible to switch from one Bundesland
Well that doesn’t surprise, every Bundesland has their own Luftamt (Aviation Authority), it gets even worse, in Bavaria they have one for Nothern Bavaria and one for Southern Bavaria…
As per regulation, a flight school change to any EASA member state’s ATO/DTO is possible. Usually it isn’t a problem. However, there are countries that violate these regulations (I heard in Germany it isn’t possible to switch from one Bundesland to the other because the PPL theory is different [it shouldn’t be] and all sorts of made up reasons). It might be wise to ask the CAA to avoid such a situation. It doesn’t help to be right if the CAA likes their opinion better.
Yes that is possible. The question is whether there is any specific regulation about it. I never found anything (for PPL).
Whenever an ATO approves a student pilot for a skill test, it is the responsibility of the ATO that all requirements in the approved ATO documents – Operations Manual, Training Manual – are fulfilled. When there has been a change of school, some additional work going through the first school’s training documentation and ticking off hours and syllabus exercises is usually involved.
If the school change is within the country, it is routine and does not involve authorities. When we get a student pilot with some training from another EASA country, we ask our competent authority for specific requirements, but I am not sure that is really necessary according to EASA regs. And we know of some problems doing that for IR training because of national differences that might actually come from gold plating. But PPL is straightforward in my experience.
