Instructor billing

6 Answers

1. 
   

   
   

   Gary Moore on Jul 06, 2014

   My view is that the airplane should be billed by the HOBBS meeting and the instructor should be billed by the clock. You should definitely charge for the time you are providing instruction. Your time is as valuable on the ground as it is in the air.

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2. 
   

   
   

   Mark Kolber on Jul 06, 2014

   It doesn’t matter. What matters is that both instructor and student (1) agree on the arrangement in advance and (2) feel the arrangement is fair. That means the student believes he is getting good value and the instructor feels he is receiving fair compensation for his time (I heartily agree with Gary that an instructor should be paid for his or her time, both inside the aircraft and out).

   I have billed flat rate, by Hobbs, by scheduled time and by “handshake-to-handshake” time. None of them is inherently fairer than the other.

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3. 
   

   
   

   Russ Roslewski on Jul 07, 2014

   I believe that billing for clock time for the instructor is the only consistently fair (for both parties) way to do it. It sets an expectation between the student and instructor that the time on the ground will be useful and productive. Other systems may work just fine, but this is the way I prefer to do it.

   What I mean is this – if the CFI is charging only by flight time, there is little incentive to provide in-depth pre-and post-flight briefings, which are a critical part of learning. Maybe the CFI is conscientious and is always thorough, but maybe not – depends on personality. As the student, the time on the ground is the CHEAPEST time, so the student should want to take maximum advantage of that. If the CFI is skimping on ground time, but isn’t charging for it, can the student really complain?

   Also, it creates an inconsistency – normal pre- and post-flight aren’t charged for, but obviously (to me anyway) if you’re doing an hour lesson on airspace, that should be charged for. Where’s the dividing line? How much pre- and post-flight is gratis, and when does charging start? Too many questions for my taste (either as an instructor or a student).

   Consider, on the other hand, that the CFI bills straight time (like I do). In fact, I book a minimum 2-hour block of my time. Obviously there are exceptions, but that’s my standard. If the flight lasts 1 hour, then I will spend another hour of pre-and- post-flight, review, general ground instruction, discussion of next lesson’s topics, whatever. Generally the student will already have the airplane preflighted when I show up, so we can get right into the material.

   In my mind, this has several benefits:
   1) The student knows they are getting a (hopefully quality) solid minimum of 2 hours of useful instruction
   2) It’s worth their time to come out to the airport. Some of my students drive close to an hour. It would be a waste of their time for them to commute 2 hours for a lesson, then spend only a little over an hour at the airport.
   3) It holds me accountable. If the student is paying for my time, but isn’t getting a quality product, they have a valid complaint.
   4) It forces me to think about their progress and prepare for the additional material, which results in better quality training than just “show up and let’s go fly”.
   5) It makes it worth MY time to go out to the airport! Let’s be honest, I love flight training, but as a part-time instructor, it does take time away from other things in my life – so I need to prioritize appropriately. A 2-hour minimum makes it worth it to me.

   Other systems can work, but I like the relative simplicity of “handshake-to-handshake time”. Of course there’s some fluff in there that I don’t charge for – lessons may go a little long, but then again I might get interrupted by someone else, etc. So I bill fairly, but I also set that expectation on my first meeting with the student. And since I started this “2-hour minimum” I haven’t received any complaints. On the contrary, my students seem to like knowing that they’ll get at least 2 hours of training at a time.

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4. 
   

   
   

   Mike Sprague on Jul 07, 2014

   Thanks for the very thoughtful responses. It makes sense to bill for instruction both for pre/post flight. Using the Hobbs meter for both is just easier for having definitive, consistent time but that short changes the value provided for after flight discussions – what went wrong, what went right – which is cheaper than in the air. I was thinking more like airline pilot pay – brakes off to brakes on.

   Thanks.

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5. 
   

   
   

   Mark Kolber on Jul 08, 2014

   Using the Hobbs meter for both is just easier for having definitive, consistent time but that short changes the value provided for after flight discussions

   The point is it doesn’t have to. That’s what I meant by all methods can be fair. As you may have already found, a lot of places bill for both ground and air based on the Hobbs. Whether that has become so prevalent that it’s become a student expectation or it’s for som eother reason like the consistency you mention, I don’t know. But what they’ve done (or should have done) to make it fair to the flight school or instructor, is apply a fudge factor to the hourly billing rate to account for the difference.

   For example, If you have found that the typical pre/postflight briefing is about 30-40 minutes per hour of flight time, you just use that number to help calculate your hourly rate. For simplicity, let’s round it to a 10th of an hour – call it 36 minutes or 0.6 hour.

   If you hoped to get $25 per hour “real” time, that equates to a $40 per hour rate based on the Hobbs.

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6. 
   

   
   

   Chris Zhang on Nov 13, 2017

   I charge by the clock. It’s only fair that when I devote an entire time period to a student, I get paid for that entire time period.

   One exception is on cross country flights where we take a break or have a meal at the destination airport. Then I charge hobbs + 0.5. Another exception is when I bill at my daily block rate.

   I’ve seen some CFIs charge by the hobbs or hobbs + certain time. That can happen when the CFI is an employee of the flight school and bills the student through the school. But there’s a problem with that arrangement. Sometimes the CFI will hurry off after a flight, maybe out of fear that the student would ask too many questions and prolong the debrief, where the CFI does not get compensated for spending the extra time on debrief. A detailed debrief would benefit the student with a more effective lesson and less overall cost.

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