South African Airways (SAA) is celebrating ten years since the first group of cadet pilots graduated from the airline’s training programme in 1996.
Johannesburg – The eight cadets, Brett Pate, Glen Smith, Nhlanhla Dube, Celest Ntlokwa, Theo Swarts, Sifiso Masuku, Prakash Govender and Thando Mkhabela received their wings at a ceremony exactly ten years ago to the date.
The graduates were part of an initial group of twelve who began the training at the Australian Aviation College in Adelaide, Australia (now known as BAe Systems Flight Training) in 1994.
All the graduates began flying with SAA in October 1998.
The SAA Cadet Pilot Programme was designed with the objective of opening up opportunities for previously disadvantaged individuals to follow careers as pilots and to bring SAA more in line with the demographics of South Africa.
“SAA is producing world class pilots through the programme who are efficient and follow the most rigorous safety standards,” says Captain Colin Jordaan, SAA General Manager Flight Operations.
The programme follows an extremely stringent selection process, with only the best chosen to take part.
Their training consists of a theory-based course and thereafter preparation and flight training.
It costs SAA approximately R700 000 per candidate to complete the course.
Since the Cadet Pilot Training Programme began 12 years ago, it has produced 134 of South Africa’s best pilots.
The demographics of these are:
African male: 42
African female: 2
Indian male: 18
Indian female: 4
Coloured male: 21
Coloured female: 5
White male: 13
White female: 29
Of these, 74 are pilots for SAA with the rest completing their internships with various feeder airlines, including SA Express, SA Airlink, Qwila Air and Solenta Aviation. Those undergoing internships will eventually fly for SAA.
Flight training was conducted in Australia from 1996 up until 2004. A decision was taken to move the programme to South Africa in 2002.
A total of 11 cadets groups completed flight training in Australia with the final group graduating in April 2004.
In August 2002, the programme was, as initially intended, brought to South Africa with training being done at 43 Air School in Port Alfred.
The decision to bring the programme into the country was to develop South African skills, lower the cost of training per student, to develop a major training centre for all local pilots and to contribute towards the economic growth of the Eastern Cape, recognised as one of the most disadvantaged provinces.
SAA has a total of 17 cadets currently doing their flight training.