A locally owned general aviation airline company has for the first time, taken on board seven young commercial pilots to undergo ground school.
Two of the pilots are females.
“We find it a privilege to give an opportunity to those who are not so privileged to get an Air Niugini Scholarship or a Defense Force scholarship,” said Air Sanga Flight Ops Manager/Chief Pilot, James Yanda.
“See we had a national himself who started the company and as nationals, we want to see what we can do to pass on that same privilege of training and exposure to get into aviation industry.”
Waimale Peter is one of the seven candidates undergoing ground school.
“In PNG, aviation is a very small industry and it’s hard for most of the pilots who finish in training school to get into flight school,” he said.
“The ground training course that Air Sanga has offered has helped us a lot and the knowledge that they have imparted, it’s hard to get a training like that and we very much appreciate what Air Sanga is doing.”
For each candidate, it cost almost K40,000 for ground school and endorsement when successful.
“How we do that is unknown at this stage and we hope to get some support somewhere,” Instructor ground school, Johannes Pilamp, added.
“Air Sanga has been recognised by CASA and they’ve given us to do the ground course now for the students that are coming up. They come from flying school and most of them would not get a job anywhere else because of other requirements in other companies with minimum hours to get a job.”
Aviation veteran Captain Michal Butler is also part of the team at Air Sanga.
“Most of our work is to the Central Province’s airstrip, Koiari and Goilala area, there’s six Koiari strips and 10 Goilala airstrips,” Butler stated.
“Since the 1990, the air services has declined more and more, there used to be a lot of small companies.”
Air Sanga commenced training last week. It currently services some of the most remote areas of Goilala in Central Province and Morobe.
The passenger-charter company began its operation in 2011 and currently has a Twin Otter and a Pac P-750 operating, with plans to bring an additional Twin Otter in April.
