Trainee pilots set to lose €80,000

Students of Waterford-based Pilot Training College of Ireland are likely to lose at least €80,000 each in fees and legal costs after it was wound up by the High Court yesterday.

The company had been under court protection from its creditors since July when an examiner was appointed but that was withdrawn after Mr Justice Paul Butler heard that a potential investor had pulled out.

The interim examiner, Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton, had engaged with interested parties and the Irish Aviation Authority in a bid to save the company as a going concern and to restore the college’s licence.

Barrister Bernard Dunleavy explained that an investor withdrew on Thursday and this left the examiner unable to put a survival plan in place to save the business. Mr McAteer has now been appointed as liquidator of the company.

Mr Dunleavy applied to lift the protection of the court, discharge the examiner and order the winding up of the company. He said the company was now hopelessly insolvent.

The development means that 350 students, who are owed a total of almost €5.5m, will be left with nothing as the company has no funds to return fees of around €80,000 they each paid for a training course in Florida in the US.

The High Court had already granted the company a 30-day extension to the period of protection from its creditors in the hope that a survival plan could be put together by Mr McAteer.

In an earlier court hearing, the company said the cause of its difficulties included the complete breakdown of its relationship with its US partner, Florida Institute of Technology Aviation. In July, around 80 trainees were left stranded in Florida after being told their training would not be continuing despite having paid €80,000 for the course.

Yesterday, Judge Butler heard the students would not even receive their legal costs from the examinership or from the liquidation process that will now follow.