Peter Duniho wrote:


Ahh...I misunderstood. I thought by "rates" you meant those were the
hourly
rates for those aircraft. I think intro prices are good policy, but
yours
don't really differentiate your outfit at all. Your intro offering
is
basically the same one would find pretty much anywhere, and now
heavily
advertised through http://www.beapilot.com.

And we are part of the beapilot program. By intro rates I meant intro
rate on the two seater and the one on the 4 seater.
We are the only outfit that offers intro rates in Renton Airport.
That's when our differentiation comes in. There are other flight
schools in the area that don't offer that at all.

My motto is, even if I don't make any money on the first flight,
you
will stick around and finish your private with us.

Yup, there's a reason lots of schools and FBOs have a similar policy.


I also intentionally don't sell "private pilot packages" because I
don't want anyone to sign up and then feel the frustration of not
being
able to get their money back. Believe me, I have seen really bad
flight
schools that they will take your money $1000 or more and will never
return it because it's hidden in some place on their rental
agreement.

Couldn't that be addressed by either a) giving the student's money
back, or
b) not hiding whatever restrictions exist on refunding the money?

It could , but most of the local people don't do that.. There have been
cases where other flight schools hung on to their customers block money
($200 to $1000) in expense of losing the customer for good.