CAA: GA News, "Airports gain altitude"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tuesday, September 25, 2001 

Airports gain altitude
Student pilots, instructors return to limited skies 
By Joe Humphrey 
The Florida Times-Union


Flight schools on the First Coast and throughout America returned to the
skies this weekend, but not before losing precious training hours and
millions of dollars in revenue.

The nation's flight schools lost about $15 million a day following the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent grounding by the Federal
Aviation Administration, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association.

Some training restrictions were lifted a few days after the attacks, but
the 3,200 to 4,000 flight schools weren't given the OK to resume
near-normal operations until late Friday.

Jacksonville schools resumed training Saturday after losing 11 days and,
in the case of two schools, about $20,000 each.

North Florida Flight Center, like many of its counterparts nationally,
is trying to catch up with lost revenue.

"For a business like this to lose two weeks, it's a momentum thing,"
said John Slate, who manages the school, one of several based at Craig
Municipal Airport. "It's going to take another two weeks to get back up
to speed. So it's really like being off for a month."

Owner Colleen Krause-Straw said her school made only $175 during one
three-day stretch.

The school's Craig field neighbor, Sterling Flight Training, also lost
about $20,000 during the shutdown, according to Hayden Malone, co-owner
of the family-owned business.

He said the company will survive, "but it was a pretty good financial
hit." Just like some commercial airlines (Midway Airlines announced its
demise shortly after the terrorist attacks.), he predicts not every
school will survive. 

"There's probably going to be quite a few [that will close]," Malone
said. "Most flight training is mom-and-pop operations, so they're
definitely not wealthy companies. You'd never want to go in this
business to get rich."

All commercial air travel was halted nationally after two jets sliced
through the World Trade Center's twin towers and a third hit the
Pentagon. The shutdown was a historic prohibition that had never been
ordered.

Flights resumed two days later, with jets cleared for takeoff.

But the flight schools remained grounded as the FBI continued its
investigation into the attacks. At least three Florida flight schools
helped train some of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 crashes in
New York, at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania.

"The biggest reason we think it was shut down was because these people
were trained to fly here [in Florida]," said Justin Schlechter, a
Jacksonville University aviation student who teaches pilot training at
Comair Aviation Academy at Craig field. "It's not like they have to
worry about these little planes causing mass destruction."

The schools returned to limited operation when the FAA lifted its ban on
some flight training by allowing the use of instrument-guided planes,
those flown with the use of sophisticated gauges and guides. Instrument
flying represents a small segment of the pilot-training business, about
10 percent at North Florida Flight Center, said Krause-Straw.

Late Friday, the FAA allowed the resumption of planes operated under
visual flight rules, flights commanded within view of the ground. Not
all flights, however, have resumed. Some airspace also is off limits.

The training industry, for the most part, is back in business.

"I think that any inconvenience our business experienced pales in
comparison to what's been going on overall," said Nick Miller, a
spokesman for Comair Aviation Academy, a Delta Air Lines subsidiary that
provides training for JU students. "We'll be able to recover."

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