Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Pilot Training College of Ireland: Discussion

1:30 pm

Mr. Brian Kealy:

We have affidavits from the main director as part of his defence in terms of the attempts to restrict him as a director. According to company statements - this is repeated in a number of other documents we have seen - the company decided to go after big airlines in terms of student recruitment, in respect of which it spent a great deal on advertising, but, unfortunately, a lot of the business it chased did not come to pass. It spent €1.2 million on advertising in 2011. We do not have a breakdown of what the advertising included because there were very few lines of information in what we received. It appears to us that a lot of that money was spent on advertising to recruit more retail students, which was not consistent with the company's new strategy. It went after Aer Lingus, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airlines and a few others. Having spent money, which was students' money, it did not land the contracts either because people withdrew or at least did not proceed.

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