News-National
Elizabeth Ramoni flies out from Solair
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
ONE of the best known local pilots with Solomon Airlines, Elizabeth Ramoni, has resigned, amidst suggestions local pilots need a better deal.
“Yes, I have resigned because of internal matters that need to be sorted out by Solomon Airlines management,” she said yesterday.
She refused to discuss in detail the internal matter but said that local pilots needs to be recognised.
Solomon Airlines chief executive Ron Sumsum said he will comment today after seeing what was said in this report.
Mr Sumsum is himself a jet pilot, and was the most senior ni Vanuatu captain with Air Vanuatu before joining Solomon Airlines.
Sources within Solomon Airlines said there is concern over differences in the employment conditions of local and expatriate pilots.
Solomon Airlines has to employ a multinational group of pilots to fly its three Twin Otter and one Britten Norman Islander aircraft.
Like most Pacific Islands airlines, it loses highly-trained local pilots and engineers to aviation operators in other parts of the world.
Jet pilots in particular are in demand as aviation expands globally. Major regional carriers such as Fiji’s Air Pacific have to make increasing use of expatriate contract pilots after losing local pilots to high-paying airlines in the Middle East.
It has also been recruiting and training more pilots from Fiji’s domestic airlines and flying schools.
Solomon Airlines is understood to have also lost ground engineers to Australian operators after investing heavily in training them.
It was unable to compete with the packages the engineers were offered and the attraction of the much stronger Australian dollar.
One source within Solomon Airlines - who spoke on condition of not being named - said if the airline wants to retain its local pilots it will need to pay them the same way it pays the expatriates.
This source said this is because of frustration over some less experienced expatriate pilots appearing to get better conditions than local captains.
However, Solomon Airlines has to offer these conditions to be able to attract the expatriate pilots to work in the Solomon Islands.
By EDNAL PALMER
.....just wondering when this will stop!!!!! Really need to overhaul the airlines management, they're paid big "bucks" but their managerial styles left so much to be desired!!! Maybe they should leave and let someone
competent and
capable to take over!!