Troubled flight school
Trax Air, based at Orlando Executive Airport, ceases operations days after instructors complain they hadn’t been paid.
Trax Air pilot training school has notified the Federal Aviation Administration it is ceasing operations, an FAA spokeswoman said Thursday, days after instructors walked out saying they had not been paid.
Based at Orlando Executive Airport, the company also said it is considering surrendering its pilot school certificate, the spokeswoman stated.
Trax Air founder Bryan Brewer said in an email that the agency’s information was incorrect and he would not give up the certificate that allows the flight school to operate. Brewer said a student graduated Thursday.
Trax Air’s offices have been dark during business hours on several recent days. On Wednesday, Brewer was at the school, along with about a half dozen international students who were trying to get back tuition of as much as $10,000. They were also concerned about losing their travel visas. Closing schools usually transfer students elsewhere in order to protect their visas, said a spokesman for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Charles Brady, of Beach Aviation based in Boca Raton, is among flight school owners who have reached out to Trax Air students, saying he is expediting plans to expand into the Orlando market.
“We were requested to come up here by students,” he said.
Three Trax Air instructors, Brady said, claimed they had not been paid in weeks. Three instructors also have told the Sentinel they had not been paid in weeks.
Several airplane owners have claimed Trax Air did not pay them when it leased their planes.
“When he wrote me a bad check and it bounced, I said: ‘Do not fly my aircraft,’ and they flew it anyway,” said Steve Morris, who owns a Beechcraft Duchess model.
LJ Air Inc, which leases planes to flight schools, filed a complaint in August saying Trax Air owes about $220,000, court records show.
The landlord for Trax Air, SheltAir, seeks $36,000 in back rent.
Brewer, of Maitland, said Wednesday an Orlando Sentinel reporter was to blame “for all this” and then asked the reporter to leave the property.
Trax Air grew out of a struggling Orlando aviation academy that Brewer acquired in 2012. He has described it as offering “the finest aviation training, rental and maintenance services, backed by Central Florida’s largest private fleet.”
The closing of Trax Air in recent days is one of the most recent financial troubles facing Brewer. On Monday, Orange County Circuit Judge Donald Myers approved a judgment of $27,000 against Brewer’s company Trax Financial LLC by payroll servicer Paychex Inc.
Earlier this month, Transportation Alliance Bank Inc. filed a federal lawsuit claiming Trax Air defaulted on three loans totaling more than $800,000.
During the last year, Orlando philanthropist Tony Nicholson claimed in court filings that Brewer owes him about $1 million, and Russian agricultural executive Sergei Mikhailov is seeking $11 million, court records show. Brewer also faces a foreclosure on his home by Centennial Bank.