Pilots in Tanzania decry unemployment

Travel 

Monday, March 31, 2014 

BY KENAN KALAGHO, EAST AFRICAN BUSINESS WEEK, KAMPALA, UGANDA

Pilots, flight operators and flight engineers may not be able to take on domestic flight in the country

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - The government of Tanzania has said it will do all it can to ensure local pilots, flight operators as well as flight engineers are given the priority over job opportunities for domestic flight in the country.
This will ensure that local pilots get the required expertise and experience for the good of the nation and the future of aviation industry in the country.
Speaking recently during the meeting with the Professional Association of Tanzanian Pilots (PATP) in Dar es Salaam, the Minister of Transport Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe said there were more young foreign pilots employed in the country’s domestic flights and this needed to be reversed.
“We have few older pilots aged 50yrs and above in the country while the majority of young domestic pilots between the ages of 20 to 49 are foreigners, this is a problem for the country,” Mwakyembe said.
He said the country needed to change this system in order to train more Tanzanians to become future captains in both local and regional flights, while insisting for the association to be more aggressive in fighting for their rights.
According to the Secretary General of PATP Capt. Khalil Iqbal Tanzania local pilots were being segregated with regards to job opportunities and his association is also being sidelined in all issues regarding aviation regulations in the country.
Iqbal said foreign pilots are being favored by issuing them with temporary Visas which are then used to secure flight jobs intended for Tanzania local pilots.
He wondered whether the country has law enforcers to ensure that these illegal foreign pilots have no access to jobs in the country just like it is with other countries like Kenya, and South Africa where it is hard for a foreign pilot to secure jobs.
“We have had experiences where South Africans and Canadians pilots have used the 90 days being given by the Civil Aviation Authority upon their arrival with a flight in the country as an opportunity to make money by flying domestic flights in the country and upon reporting this to relevant authorities we only saw corruption elements and nothing has been done so far,” Iqbar said.
Iqbar said around 40 young local pilots in the country do not have jobs while local airlines are giving temporary passes to foreign pilots from Kenyans, South Africans and Canada to fly domestic flights.
He said local pilots who have been trained oversee in South Africa, Canada and the USA are now back in the country to fly their domestic flights but are being frustrated by TCAA.
He said: “Local pilots are required to do a test in order to be approved of their expertise and experience but TCAA tests take time to be released and they do fail students deliberately. The 70% pass multiple choice test may take more than 3 weeks to be released while in other countries it is a single day exercise.”
He said local pilot students are being failed deliberately without being told which subjects they have failed and they sometimes are not given even the chance to see such tests results.
“We have a lot of local pilots, flight operators and flight engineers with very good qualifications in the country who are without jobs while a lot of foreigners have been employed taking the space of these local youngsters who have spent a lot of money in their studies” Iqbar said.
According to the Chairman of the PATP Capt. Aziz Abdhallah, almost $50,000 is used to train each pilot and leaving them without a job is a sad experience.
Abdhallah said Tanzania flight operators need to change their mindset and start employing local pilots, flight operators and engineers that will allow the country to have both experienced and expertise flight operators.
He said the international law on flights requires that every flight with nine passengers and with a scheduled flight should have circular pilots (2 pilots) but this is not being done in Tanzania.
“If we could allow this to happen as per the international law requirements a lot more young Tanzania pilots and flight operators will secure jobs and we will manage to train more future captain of this nation,” he said.
He said experience shows that a lot of Tanzania flight accidents were as a result of having only one pilot on the flight which is dangerous if the pilot gets sick abruptly and fails to manage the flight.
However, according to Mr. Elias Moshi from Tanzania Air Operators Association, local pilots in Tanzania lacked the required qualifications in order to secure jobs with both local and regional flights.
He said local pilots have Commercial Pilots License (CPL) which is an initial certificate with less experience as opposed to Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL) which is required in order to prove that they are more experienced with more flight hours.