Cirrus Aviation - Sarasota, Florida

Steven H.

My family had an amazing flight. Our pilot Jayna was thorough, patient and very attentive to detail. Her confidence made our trip extremely pleasant. We’ll definitely be talking about this experience for awhile..

YUNEEC P.

I came in for a 1 hour Intro flight in the Cessna 172, 30 mins in the simulator and 30 min flight. It was about an one hour and 15 minutes total. The actual flight was only about 15 mins. Overall my experience was great, I love being up in the clouds!

B T.

Excellent flight school and staff. I've learned at several different Part 141 programs both using Post 9/11 and out of pocket. Cirrus Aviation is elite in comparison. The Director, Ops Mgr, schedulers, and staff are amazingly good at what they do. Additionally, the CFI' are plentiful, professional, and second to none in regards to skill and control of both AC and students. I really was impressed and thankful for all of their training. Looking forward to returning from abroad and continuing my training. Best flight school in the country, and I stand by that.

Sophie F.

Loved Cirrus! They had super professional CFI’s and their program was very organized. I had to complete my private pilots license before going back to college and they were able to prepare me and schedule my checkride all before I went back to school. I felt super prepared going into the checkride and passed the first time and had an amazing experience. Their planes were well maintained and I would highly recommend the school overall!

Jake

Great flight school located at a great airport.
Awesome instructors and staff. Very well maintained planes and simulators.
Overall would recommend for anyone looking to get into flight training.

Discount A. C.

Awsome instructors. Great management and fun flying experiences. Cirrus is a good place to get your license and ratings.

Jeff B.

Steer clear of this flight school, the owners of this school made it very clear they only care about money. It's implied they'd prefer you to fly to another airport and get cheaper gas, I've saved them hundreds of dollars filling at other airports, but the second I filled up at an airport that was $0.25 cents higher than their airport they were real quick to charge me for the extra costs.

They are the most expensive Flight School within 100 miles, $200 for a poorly maintained 172 is absolutely insane. Not only that, they've taken away the ability for students to schedule their own flights, so a commercial pilot student has to go through their dispatch to schedule flights, over working their underpaid staff.

The dispatch team and majority of instructors are TOP NOTCH. Great folks, phenominal instructors. But David (the owner) is beyond greedy and only cares about dollar signs. Take care of your customers and they'll keep coming back. I was so excited to finish my commercial license, not even for the license itself, but to never have to step foot in that flight school again.

They boast being a FTA of Liberty University , but can't even follow the procedures to ensure students are taking checkrides on time, there is multiple instances I know of that they failed to schedule checkrides for students on time, causing them to either fail their classes with Liberty or require extensions. I scheduled my own checkrides and it was "frowned upon" and "not how we do business here".

Steer clear of this flight school at all costs, cheaper costs, better flight schools, and ultimately better maintained, more adequate flight schools.

Sean C.

This is going to be a lengthy review because I have waited since August 2021 to write this.

Keith Taylor Geren is so unacceptably casual and careless in his scheduling of Part 141, college students that it in itself is reason to avoid this place. In my instrument rating, I asked him when my checkride was, and he informed me he had scheduled it AFTER the end of my semester. Passing this checkride is the final exam for that class. Upon reminding him of this information, he advised me to “just get an extension from the college”. Luckily, my university excelled where Keith continually failed and granted me the extension despite being outside of the extension request window. I have chosen to schedule multiple checkrides around Keith due to this. Most recently, my commercial. When my paperwork wasn't completed on the school's side I reached out and because I circumvented Keith, he washed his hands of helping and said "that's between him and his instructor, I would know, if I scheduled the checkride".

Instructors:
MULTIPLE times I have arrived to a reservation at Cirrus only to find the aircraft still in the air. Cirrus Aviation allows their planes to be bookended, meaning a reservation from 2-3 and the next from 3-4 and then 4-5 etc etc. Then the instructors won't return on time, and there is ZERO accountability for their negligence towards the next student, who may only have that little amount of time to accomplish what they need. Then, the aircraft will still need to be fueled, and by the time the FBO gets to that, you might as well forget even flying. But what really takes the cake is when I showed up to a reservation with an instructor who I wont name because he was phenomenal up until this incident. I showed up for a 3pm reservation and got a phone call from him at 250 stating that he was going to lunch real quick, yet he had a break in his schedule that day from 1-2. Then he gets back and was gawking over another former CFI who was getting ready to depart in a jet that he had just been hired on with…for the next 2 hours. I stood there for TWO hours while this CFI did nothing but stand there and hang out with his buddies. Another issue I had with the CFIs was being bounced from one to the next. I was with one for Instrument, and he wanted to take on a student who could fly more days, so I was dropped. Fine. I get it. What is not acceptable is that CFI then going and wiping out all of my reservations. I flew to Miami with this same instructor for my long night cross country. The instructor suggested this destination and, upon arrival, suggested we stop and fuel up, which was in no way needed. A few days later, I get a bill for the difference in fuel due to the instructor suggesting we fuel. I told dispatch that it wasn’t my idea to go to Miami and that we did not need fuel and that HE needed to pay that charge. He said that I needed the training because I had never been to a class Bravo, not required or desired, and ultimately, I had to pay this bill. The third issue I had with my final CFI was more of an admin failure, Keith. My CFI went with the owner and his wife to Europe for an Elixir Aircraft event. There was no notice that he would be unavailable, no plan to schedule me with another instructor while gone for 10 days, and upon his return, I had to fight to get back on his schedule. I finally got my last few lessons done on weekends and by sourcing other instructors.

Dispatch needs to keep his political opinions to himself. Nobody walks into a flight school to talk politics.

Just today, the owners wife came up to me and asked me to remove a Facebook comment steering people away. She didn't ask why I felt the way I did, what could be done to fix it. Just that I remove the comment. She felt the need to bring this to my attention immediately before my checkride.

It is truly a black eye on Liberty University to have Cirrus Aviation tied to them. My happiness for earning my commercial license comes second to the happiness of never having to step foot in this facility ever again.

Steer clear.