IAA was warned on college’s finances

The Irish Aviation Authority was warned as recently as last September that the €85,000 fees paid by cadets training with Pilot Training College Waterford were at risk as the company could be in financial difficulty.

A British citizen who had contact with former PTC trainees made his complaints by telephone and in a letter to the IAA’s personal licensing department.

Timothy Rouse pointed out to the IAA that its most recent accounts showed a shareholder deficit of nearly €3m. The same publicly available accounts show that at the end of 2010, profit before tax was €136,036, but that the company had net liabilities of over €2m.

Derby-based Mr Rouse warned the IAA the company could have problems repaying fees to students if they got into trouble.

In response, the IAA issued a statement last night denying Mr Rouse’s claim. “As part of the standard procedures for assessing whether a company is approved to provide training for pilots, the IAA requested from PTC a statement, signed off by its bank or its auditors, confirming that the company had sufficient funds available to enable the training to be completed to the required standards. This statement was received and met the requirements for the renewal of the approval in Oct 2011.”

Meanwhile, the Irish Airline Pilots Association sharply criticised the IAA and the Government for not sufficiently regulating the Irish sector.

Speaking to RTÉ radio, Captain Evan Cullen blamed the Florida fiasco on “light-touch regulation”, something which he said “was a feature of Irish aviation for some time”.

“The IAA should have been on top of this long before now,” he said. “Why was it not highlighted before now? ... Why were safeguards not in place?”

Last night, a spokeswoman for the IAA said all requests for financial details sought by the IAA from PTC had been received and fully complied with last year.

PTC also issued a statement: “It should be noted that PTC Ireland was granted a three-year approval in 2010 by the IAA, thus demonstrating our adherence to regulatory requirements and our demonstrated commitment to quality.

“This three-year approval is the maximum permitted period of approval. Our ongoing annual audits by the IAA have all been extremely successful and as such we have continued to maintain our level of approval”.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a number of affected students and their families in the UK and Ireland have sought independent legal advice on how they can ensure they get their fees returned following the collapse of their training programme in the US.

Pilots plight

From letter dated Sept 28, 2011, from Irish Aviation Authority chief Eamonn Brennan to barrister Timothy Rouse:

“Pilot Training College Ireland is a privately owned and operated entity and, as such, the minister has no role in relation to its operations. It is approved as a flight training organisation (FTO) by the Irish Aviation Authority, the body with statutory responsibility for regulating safety standards in civil aviation in Ireland. If you have any issues concerning its operation as a FTO, I suggest that you raise these directly with the chief executive of the authority...”