Reviews of Georges Aviation Services in Honolulu

I first checked out George’s Aviation on their website to see what checkout requirements were and what the rates were. I had planned to take my wife on a site seeing tour around some of the islands when we went there for vacation. Their website indicated that in order to do cross country flights between islands that a check out cross country flight to Lanai was required with one of their CFI’s and that’s all it took. That was the first misstatement. I even called the FBO to clarify what I needed to do and they told me that same thing and asked that I schedule as far in advance as possible to get an available CFI. I scheduled a duel checkout flight with one of their CFI’s (Matt Lee) for a Tuesday afternoon and showed up over an hour early so I could do some cross country flight planning and weights and balance on the aircraft. This CFI sat there and chatted with me while I was doing my flight planning but little did I know they were charging me for this “ground time”. Even though ground time is instruction time and this instructor clearly stated that he couldn’t provide instruction during a check out flight he still charged me for ground duel time. Then when I went to do the pre-flight of the plane and this CFI was observing he didn’t once indicate anything different in the 172 SP model versus the older 172’s, such as each wing having 5 fuel sample points, and only said something after most of the pre-flight was complete.
After that I called for clearance delivery and we taxied to the run up area and did run up. Now I’ll be the first to admit that my class B airspace ATC skills were a little rusty since I hadn’t flown in class B airspace in a few years but I could have definitely gotten through it…. Just a little slower than pilots with experience flying out of this airport. We got clearance for takeoff and headed for Maui. Now here’s the second issue I have with this organization……their website says a check out to Lanai is required but this CFI said he does the cross country to the furthest island that you plan to fly too so since I was planning to fly to Kona he wanted to do a check out to at least Maui (easily 3.5 hours……..so much for the two hour check out to Lanai). We headed first to Molokai. Flight was good, no problem with flying or navigation. When almost to Molokai he changed his mind and said we could land at Kalaupapa and then cross over Molokai heading back to HNL and that would be enough. We landed at Kalaupapa and did a touch and go then headed back on the east side of Molokai.
Long story short…..I had no problems with flying skills or navigation skills and had a few issues talking to ATC in class B airspace but nothing that should have prevented me from flying on my own. Now here’s the kicker to this story. I actually completed my initial flight training Honolulu International Airport and did my FAA check ride here back in 1997 so I had done all my duels and solo cross country flights between all the islands, except Kauai, and had done quite a few flights after getting my private pilot license between all the islands so I definitely remembered the characteristics of flying in the islands and in HNL class B.
When we returned to the FBO this CFI then stated that he couldn’t give me a check out but if I wanted to fly my wife around I could get one of their CFI’s to fly along. He then stated he would have to charge me for ground time as well as the 1.5 hours of duel, which was essentially a waste of my time and money.
My opinion of the FBO is that it is a money pit! They take advantage of visiting pilots by charging for ground time and excess cross country duel flight time to further islands instead of what they state up front in their website and it’s obviously to charge the visiting pilots more money, knowing that they are probably dealing with a onetime rental. The rates at this FBO or REALLY HIGH!!!. On top of that, their website list the hourly rates but what they don’t tell you is they charge a certain amount per hour for fuel instead of letting you fuel up at the current price and they don’t tell you that until your there to rent the plane.
I would stay as far away from this company as possible and if you’re looking to do some cross country island site seeing then hire a pilot and plane to do it for you because it will definitely be less expensive.