Two South African airlines combine to offer opportunities to the young

South African Airways (SAA) and SA Express have today announced a joint effort to train scores of young South Africans to become qualified commercial pilots.
Time Aerospace thumbnail

 

 
The two state-owned airlines are pooling resources to create a jointly managed and resourced national pilot training programme, paying for the trainees’ classroom tuition, practical training, flying time, accommodation, travel and other related expenses.
With a combined budget, SA Express and SAA want to ensure that trainees have access to highly qualified instructors, combining the very best of training methods, using purpose-built training facilities and state of the art aircraft that boast some of the best technology available in present day aviation.
SAA’s new chief executive Monwabisi Kalawe said: “As the national carrier and good corporate citizen, SAA is aligned with South Africa’s employment equity objectives to accelerate skills development, extending these exciting programmes to our youth. This is an excellent opportunity for Africa’s best airline to develop and empower our country’s youth.”
His counterpart at regional carrier SA Express, Inati Ntshanga (pictured right) added: “We spent time looking at how best we could contribute towards the task of training much needed pilots for South Africa, and for our continent. This programme is going to make a huge impact in addressing the serious shortage of skills that we are seeing in the South African aviation industry. Although SA Express is far ahead when compared to the rest of the industry – we have 47 black pilots out of 255 – there’s a lot to be done still.”
Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba was at the launch and commended the airlines on their approach to attract potential cadets from less well-off backgrounds
“ It is of key importance that the aviation and aeronautical skills be encouraged as achievable career option to all sectors of our population. This event should inspire and instil a sense of immense possibilities that awaits all those young people in townships and villages throughout South Africa that they too can take to the skies and be ambassadors as pilots that have been supported and encouraged by this Government,” he said.
“Furthermore, as a developmental state we will to continue to utilise the state owned companies to drive the state’s transformation agenda, wherein we will ensure that there is skills transfers, human development and job creation for the majority of South Africans,” he added.