Missouri-based flight school Piston Aviation recently shuttered its locations, leaving students seeking refunds for prepaid training and raising questions about how unused flight hours will be handled.
Student Drake Polacek told local KTVI news that his family paid about $90,000 up front to the flight school for training.
“Once I hit high school, I was really starting to dig into how can I start getting my flight training done? How can I get it done quickly?” Polacek told KTVI.
“That’s a lot of money,” said his mother, Julie Polacek. “And to, four months later, shut your doors completely, all three locations?”
In a post to aviation-focused Facebook group Airplanes and Coffee earlier this week, Chris Harness said he was “owed around $7,000 in prepaid flight hours” and wrote that he had not received “a refund or even an explanation.”
According to KTVI’s Thursday report, Piston Aviation President Joe Ord sent flight school students an email saying it would serve as their “official voucher” to use remaining flight hours at St. Charles Flying Service.
St. Charles owner Dennis Bampton disputed that claim.
“We never had any contracts or anything like that,” Bampton told the station. “He took things for granted because I told him I would try and help.”
In a Facebook post of its own, St. Charles Flying Service said any email from Piston “regarding a voucher or continuance of flight training with St. Charles Flying Service, Inc. has been delivered to you prematurely … At this time, we are not ‘absorbing’ Piston Aviation students, aircraft, or employees.”
St. Charles Flying Service also mentioned in its post that, although it has “no plans in place at this time, this could change in the near future.”
The flight school’s refund policy stated that refunds would be issued within 180 days of the business closing.
A new group has also been created to help connect students impacted by Piston Aviation’s sudden closure with resources to continue their training.
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