Dozens of former student pilots who say they racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt for tuition are suing United Airlines and its flight school in the Arizona desert, saying it didn’t have enough teachers or aircraft to properly train and graduate its students.
The federal lawsuit accuses United and the school, United Aviate Academy, of falsely promoting a well-equipped, intensive training program that would put students on a path to becoming commercial pilots after a year. In reality, the students said in an amended complaint filed last week, their flight time was limited due to the staffing shortages and frequent staff turnover. In some cases, students were teaching other students, according to the lawsuitSome of the students said they ultimately left the program when it became clear they would not finish training after a year. But many of them alleged in the lawsuit that they were wrongly expelled from the school for “taking too long to advance" through the program.Around the time of the pandemic, United purchased the pilot school in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear to address a critical problem facing the industry: not enough pilots. Airlines have complained about the shortage for years, but they made it worse during the COVID-19 outbreak by encouraging pilots to take early retirement when air travel collapsed in 2020.
The federal lawsuit accuses United and the school, United Aviate Academy, of falsely promoting a well-equipped, intensive training program that would put students on a path to becoming commercial pilots after a year. In reality, the students said in an amended complaint filed last week, their flight time was limited due to the staffing shortages and frequent staff turnover. In some cases, students were teaching other students, according to the lawsuitSome of the students said they ultimately left the program when it became clear they would not finish training after a year. But many of them alleged in the lawsuit that they were wrongly expelled from the school for “taking too long to advance" through the program.Around the time of the pandemic, United purchased the pilot school in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear to address a critical problem facing the industry: not enough pilots. Airlines have complained about the shortage for years, but they made it worse during the COVID-19 outbreak by encouraging pilots to take early retirement when air travel collapsed in 2020.
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00:00Dozens of former student pilots who say they racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt for tuition are suing United Airlines and its flight school in the Arizona desert,
00:09saying it didn't have enough teachers or aircraft to properly train and graduate its students.
00:14The federal lawsuit accuses United and the school, United Aviate Academy, of falsely promoting a well-equipped, intensive training program that would put students on a path to becoming commercial pilots after a year.
00:26In reality, the students said in an amended complaint filed last week, their flight time was limited due to the staffing shortages and frequent staff turnover.
00:36In some cases, students were teaching other students.
00:39According to the lawsuit, some of the students said they ultimately left the program when it became clear they would not finish training after a year.
00:46But many of them alleged in the lawsuit that they were wrongly expelled from the school for taking too long to advance through the program.
00:53Around the time of the pandemic, United purchased the pilot school in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear to address a critical problem facing the industry.
01:02Not enough pilots.
01:03Airlines have complained about the shortage for years, but they made it worse during the COVID-19 outbreak by encouraging pilots to take early retirement when air travel collapsed in 2020.