Air Niugini invests in Manpower to boost its services

The national flag carrier, Air Niugini continues to invest more in manpower to boost the company’s operation in providing reliable air transport service to the people.
The airliner has done just that with the newest batch of 21 young engineers that received their European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certificates in Port Moresby today after completing five years of training at both the Air New Zealand Aviation Institute and Aviation Australia.
The airline company invested more than half a million Kina for each engineer cadet to be trained up to a level where they can certify completion of maintenance of Air Niugini air crafts.

A proud Mr. Simon Foo, the company’s CEO said, “To be able to receive such a license is not easy. These young Papua New Guineans have worked long and hard. It took them up to five years to have successfully completed their training before they could obtain the UK AME licenses,” he said.
“This license granted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority is recognized worldwide and now allows these young Papua New Guineans to be able to certify the completion of maintenance on United Kingdom registered aircraft. They could even convert their UK Licenses to an Australian or New Zealand (NZ) License very easily and certify for Australian or NZ Aircraft.”

“It is a higher level training that’s recognized worldwide. With this license, I am told, these Air Niugini Aircraft Maintenance Engineers can apply for a PNG AME license without having to complete the basic license exam.”
He went on to say, “Using the UK AME license, the first group of AMEs can now apply to CASA PNG for Fokker 100/70 Type rating endorsement, while the second group can apply for the endorsement and rating on Dash 8-100/200/300 aircraft.”
Meanwhile, among the batch are two young ladies, Lyndah Eremas and Elena Mai who also got their certificates today.
The cadets where grouped into two groups with one group attending Air New Zealand Aviation Institute and the other attending Aviation Australia.
Air Niugini is serious about training and continues to invest heavily in the training of its staff including cadet engineers and pilots every year.

Picture: the engineers along with Air Niugini CEO, Simon Foo, CASA PNG Director Wilson Sagati and Air New Zealand Aviation Institute's Business Development Manager, John Ogilvie in a group photo shoot