The Acting Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Chris Najomo has raised the alarm over the looming shortage of aircraft pilots in the global aviation industry including Nigeria, as 65,000 of them will be due for retirement within the next few years.
The NCAA DG stated this at the second edition of the annual pilot seminar organized by its conveners, Joy Ogbebo, the CEO of MamaJ Aviation Consult.
Najomo while addressing a cross section of aviation training school students at the event, used the opportunity to volunteer to help students of the various aviation training schools who are interested in being trained as aircraft pilots to secure sponsorship from their respective state governments.
He encouraged the interested students to go through their state governments to solicit financial sponsorship, since it has become expensive to train aircraft pilots under the present global economic crisis.
Najomo advised the indigenous airlines operators to allocate more funds for urgent training of pilots to replace the aging ones who are expected to disengage from active flying career soon.
He described the
Eighth Explore Aviation Careers Conference as apt with the theme: “Proactive Approach to Capacity Building in the Aviation Industry,” even as he admonished other airlines to emulate Air Peace management by training more pilots to avoid the looming manpower shortage crisis in the industry.
In the same vein, the president of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria (AOPAN), Dr. Alex Nwuba, raised the alarm over the large number of aircraft pilots expected to retire from active flying career in the next two years, saying it would spell doom for the industry unless urgent steps were initiated to nip the crisis in the bud.
Nwuba therefore called for a regulatory regime that would assist both the government and the airline operators to build a formidable general commercial aviation in the country.
According to Nwuba, though aviation career is not only a very hard job, rough road, but very lucrative if the students could master the act.
Equally the Chief Operating Officer, Ibom Air, Mr. Gorge Uresi, challenged the students to access career information before taking a professional decision on any job such as airplane pilots and other career in the aviation industry.
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