Air Seychelles builds up pool of Seychellois pilots |07 July 2011

Such training provided by the national airline’s flight operations department is aimed at ensuring a safe and reliable air service so as to promote the socio-economic development of the country.

Air Seychelles newly appointed director for Flight Operations, Captain Ralph Saminaden, said:
 
“The objective is in line with our commitment to localize all flying positions in our B767 fleet and to also overcome the setback whereby Seychellois pilots have left to join other foreign carriers.”

As part of its on-going training programme, the airline has provided a R3.7m Type Qualification Training to four domestic pilots -- Derek Imaduwa, Samuel Lautee, Sandy Benoiton and Charles Elizabeth --  who have moved to international flight operations to train as first officers.

Their training includes online Computer Based Training (CBT) of Airplane Systems carried out at the Air Seychelles flight operations CBT Centre, a JAR Ops flight simulation training at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam and which has been recognised by the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA), flight management system training and learn and practice the Air Seychelles standard operating procedures.

Other components of their first officers training are full flight simulator sessions, a multi-crew co-operation course and low visibility training for European winter conditions.

Base training to learn more on take-offs and landing of a B767 aircraft were carried out by local line training captains at the Seychelles International Airport.

Meanwhile, two Seychellois B767 first officers -- Christophe Larue and Achilles Hoareau -- are also undergoing their upgrade – to command an aircraft training to become captains.

This three-month training includes leadership, decision-making and communication skills.

As part of Air Seychelles’ on-going training programme, four Seychellois captains, including Seychelles first-ever female B767 pilot, Captain Nicole Chang-Leng, with three other captains -- Robert Marie, Harry Samson and Daniel McGaw -- have been selected to undergo a R200,000 valued training as line training captains whereby upon completion they will train first officers and captains.

The airline’s flight operations department will shortly be introducing the Boeing on-board performance tool (OPT) training which is basically a hard and software programme to improve takeoff performance calculations and also reduce engine wear.

With the four domestic pilots moving over to international flight operations to train as first officers, the national airline is transferring trained Seychellois pilots currently gaining working experience in its Operational Control Centre (OCC) at the airport, to fly on its inter-island route. This will also assist to replace the migration of pilots to international flight operations and also maintain its pool of domestic pilots.

To date Air Seychelles has 58 Seychellois pilots in its domestic and international fleet and 7 foreign pilots in its international fleet.