Honourable Premier
CEO of 43 Air School
Students and staff
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a great honour for me to take this opportunity on behalf of the Eastern Cape Department of Transport to congratulate the 43 Air School on its 21st Anniversary.
This institution has been a strategic partner of the department in the implementation of our Blue Skyway Aviation Strategy, which seeks to maximise the potential of the Bhisho and Mthatha airports and bring new life to the 110 rural airstrips within the province.
The main objective of this strategy is to ensure adherence to the National Policy (White Paper on Civil Aviation of March 2005), where it is stated that government should not be involved in operating airports, but should encourage private sector involvement. Government, however, remains responsible for ensuring that airports contribute to the socio-economic development of the area.
Today, Bhisho Airport is our New Partnership Africa’s Development (NEPAD) project, which recently received the Premier’s Balasela Awards for its socio-economic impact, which involved job creation especially for local people in security, cleaning and catering services.
As we speak, the Bhisho Airport is a satellite of this institution and 80 student pilots are undergoing training. These students are from Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, India, Kenya Air Force and Kenya Airways, and privately sponsored students from around South Africa.
Before the end of the year, we are expecting to have a total of 100 students.
Currently, Bhisho Airport is the second largest private pilot training school in Africa after this Port Alfred-based Campus with sophisticated synthetic devices.
The 43 Air School will soon provide tower facilities at the Airport.
This clearly proves that the decision that we took as provincial government (Department of Roads and Transport in particular) to revitalise that airport, was correct.
Such an investment will assist in the realisation of one of provincial government’s priorities of strengthening education, and building a skills and human resource base.
I would like to call upon the management of this school to vigorously embark on outreach programmes, especially in rural areas, in order expose our youth to opportunities within the aviation sector.
Such an initiative will go a long way in:
* Improving the implementation of strategic skills programme
* Building partnership for skills development as required by the economy.
Through working together with this institution, we are looking forward to a day when the shortage of pilots will be a challenge of the past and to see more young Africans, especially girls, not only serving refreshments inside aeroplanes, but being pilots and captains.
We remain hopeful that working together we can have more female instructors, especially from the Eastern Cape Province.
Yes, this can sound like a pipe dream, but it is a dream that we can achieve if we believe in our individual and collective strength.
In conclusion, I would like to once more wish 43 Air School many, many more years and recommit my Department in our partnership, which we believe will add value to the Provincial Growth and Development Plan.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Transport and Safety, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
26 June 2009
