I give two stars instead of one because at least I met some nice people and enjoyed flying.
Quite the unorganized training school. It's full of instructors who just want to build hours. Because they're not paid that well, it's in their interest to teach as much as possible. In other words, there is little incentive to get you through your training within a reasonable amount of time.
I went in as an absolute beginner, in conjunction with Seneca College, as part of a "Fast Track" aviation diploma. LOL.
TAL and Seneca didn't seem to be communicating, because none of my flight instructors at TAL even knew what I was talking about when I told them that I was in the Fast Track programme, or even if I simplified it for them and told them that I was taking night classes through Seneca.
My first instructor left within a few months. When my next instructor started, she wanted to see what I could do, so basically I was forking out a lot of money and time so that she could see where I was at. I was with her for awhile, then she left (couldn't afford to be an instructor at TAL), then I was with an older, experienced instructor who "assured" me that he was there for me. He sold himself as an instructor for students, not just some young punk there to get his hours. In fact, he was worse than a young punk and he was there to build hours and work on his ATPL. He destroyed me financially. My training was already drawn out enough, but he took it to the max. There I was trying to get my PPL, going further in debt every day despite working, and then I'd go flying with him, with him basically just complaining. I'd get back on the ground, hand over my credit card to get deducted $300 or so, then it was time to wait for the next flight, which would sometimes be a month later. His schedule would get totally full, a lot of that from him booking off time for himself. Anyway, that went on a very long time, and eventually I got passed over to a young instructor who was alright, who also took his time, but eventually sent me off to my PPL exam so that I could finish. All in all it took so long that I'm embarrassed to say. I was stuck deep in debt.
The CPL training went a lot smoother. I actually had one instructor throughout the whole thing. It took about a year extra for that.
Later, when I went for an instructor rating, that was also stretched out. I purposely wasn't working so that I could focus on the rating. The instructor who I learnt from is a long-time TAL instructor and another student highly recommended her. I learnt a lot, but it was more costly than need be. There was way too much time spent on the ground. She had a tendency to socialize with whomever passed by the door. She liked to talk a lot of crap before and after classes, and some of that time was on my dime (or Visa, I should say). It really should've got done more quickly, but she lumped me into a category with another of her students who had a family and jobs that he was busy with, instead of lumping me with the younger guy who was there to just breeze through the rating.
Later working as an instructor at one of Canada's top flight schools, my supervisor was constantly complaining about the instruction I must have received for my instructor rating. He kept telling me that I was a good guy, a smart guy, someone who understood things, yet I must've had a terrible instructor for the rating.
I know several people who went on to be instructors for TAL.
One instructor had already done a year or two of instructing, and was offered a full-time position at TAL to teach Chinese students in a special programme. He was offered a specific monthly salary. Basically he told me that he was pressured to keep passing these inexperienced pilots to the next level, no matter how bad they were. Eventually TAL suddenly cut the salary from all of these teachers on the premise that they weren't working hard enough to get these students through their training. What TAL did was illegal, but the instructors couldn't really do anything about it because there they were working at the largest flight school in Canada. When you're a young pilot, you need to build experience. If you sue your boss, you're not going to be getting much experience. Anyway, I know a couple of instructors who were in this Chinese programme who had their salaries taken from them and were basically forced to work for free. Of course they made some money, but they were actually teaching for free at the school and expected to be there all day, which was so unreasonable that they had to leave.
To sum it up, you better think hard before starting anything serious with TAL. Expect to spend a lot of money, much more than their minimal estimates. Expect to spend a lot of time. Expect your instructor to leave part-way through your training. On top of that, if you do well, and are hired as an instructor, be prepared to continue the financial hardships. read more