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Pilot shortage hits rural airline
Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) — the longest aviation company serving rural Papua New Guinea — has cut back its services due to a shortage of pilots. General manager Mike Jelliffe said in a statement yesterday that due to the shortage of pilots, the company had to restructure its operations. He said MAF was not able to meet all flight requests in some remote areas due to the shortage. He said MAF recruited pilots from all over the world but due to various reasons, some who have been scheduled for PNG have not come. Other pilots who have had their time here resigned and some of those spaces have yet to be filled. He said recruiting was not a straight forward case for MAF as those selected had to go through a one year Bible training program before starting on the job. “But we are hoping that before the end of the year, we should be able to get a few pilots who are currently undergoing training and getting their houses up in Australia,” he said. Mr Jelliffe said at the moment, MAF had the capacity to get nine pilots who could get straight into flying without delay. He said MAF recruits pilots from England, Holland, Korea, Germany, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and a few other countries. He said the climate was not the reason for pilots not wanting to come here but it was a similar case with other airline companies in the country where a pilot shortage was becoming a concern. “We regret this inconvenience and apologise to our valued customers that we have had to reduce service levels like this,” he said. “We wish to assure the public that we are doing all we can to increase our pilot numbers and restore full service levels.” Mr Jelliffe said this month, Vanimo will be serviced by the Telefomin and Wewak aircraft. A pilot and GA8 aircraft will be based at Vanimo for operations by April, he said. The Telefomin Twin Otter will assist with Vanimo operations this month and Kiunga operations one day a week from April, he said. He said from late March, Kawito (Lower Fly) operations will be serviced by the Twin Otter from Mt Hagen and backed up by the Rumginae based C206. No aircraft would be based at Kawito for the immediate future, though Kawito base would remain open, he said. Mr Jelliffe said although all remote communities would be serviced, there would be a reduction in capacity for some areas. The Mt Hagen-based airline has been operating in rural PNG for more than 55 years.
I also see that the mins for F/O's at Airlink is down to 500 hours TT