Flight Schools Feel Terror Fallout

By VICKIE CHACHERE
Associated Press Writer

TAMPA, Fla. - The nation's flight schools say they will be out of business soon unless the government lets their planes back in the air.

"Whether wittingly or not, we are darn sure being punished," said Tom Davis, a former Navy pilot who owns the Crystal Aero Group flight school 90 miles north of Tampa. "Nothing is flying here."

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration is allowing only instrument-rated pilots who file flight plans with airports to fly.

The ban is intended to help air traffic controllers keep track of smaller planes. Exceptions have been made for crop-dusting planes, but the bills are beginning to mount for the nation's 478 FAA-certified flight schools.

"We're hearing from businesses that are saying they're not going to be able to hold on much longer," said Warren Morningstar, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "Flight training is a capital-intensive business, an aircraft is an expensive item, and if you have a whole fleet of aircraft you have some very sizable fixed costs."

Since many of the suspected hijackers in last week's attacks attended U.S. flight schools, companies also fear the loss of foreign students.

Flight school operators said they expect the State Department to make it more difficult for foreign students to enter the country for flight school, or it will at least employ a screening process that will lengthen the wait for visas.

Jon Brown, who owns a seaplane school between Orlando and Tampa, said his company has lost $15,000. He has laid off a mechanic and told other employees not to come to work this week.

The school attracts many foreign students because it offers weeklong sessions to earn seaplane certification. Brown said some students returned home this week without completing their classes.

"In two weeks we're not going to have the money to pay the rent," said Alex Farkas, owner of ADF Airways in Miami. "We're a family business. My husband is the chief instructor, my sister does accounting. It's very difficult."

Rep. Bob Clement, D-Tenn., a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said officials understand the plight of flight schools.

"I'm not going to forget about general aviation," Clement said. "Over 80 percent of the takeoffs and landings in this nation are general aviation. If this ban continues, pilot instructors, flight schools and others are going to be bankrupt."

In Mississippi, student pilot Heather Fischer said she is worried because the airlines she wants to work for have started laying off employees.

"I'm not losing hope, especially as resilient as this country is," Fisher said. "The only thing that's frustrating is that we can't fly."