Recently, the Minister of Works Mr. John Byabagambe who was visiting Soroti flying school ordered that the Soroti Flying School be rehabilitated and requested that his permanent Secretary finds shs.5b to give to the school. Presently the School gets shs.400m every quarter and according to the flight instructor, they had not been paid for the last three months. Hon Minister, you may not be aware but I was the last chairman of Uganda Airlines and i took the decision to close that airline but it was making a loss of almost USD1million a year. At the end of every month, we had to run to the Minister of Finance to pay IATA and other creditors. Realizing that it was not sustainable, I recommended that we close the airline. If you check the records, there was even a decision to sell it to South African Airways for a dollar. I imagine you know what that means. They wanted the routes because that is an important asset in the airline business. I was also privileged to work with the flying school. I participated in drawing up a strategic plan for the school. At that time, the flying school had been selected as a Ugandan institution to be designated as a Centre of excellence by the East African Communities. The EAC required Uganda to put in some money into the school so that it could be taken up. This money unfortunately, was never availed by government.
In its hay days, the flying school trained pilots for the region mainly the East African airways and other airlines in the region. Today, the school is white elephant. Unfortunately Uganda’s aviation industry is not something to write on about. Kenya has a booming industry. Ethiopia probably is best placed in the region because it has the biggest airline in Africa. South Africa is an aggressive new comer in the aviation industry. Given all this with poor funding, the flying school is dead meat. I was recently in Nairobi and I read about East African flying school. I am aware, I hope it is not the same that the Wilson airport in Nairobi has a flying school. Given Uganda’s decimal position in the regions aviation industry, the flying school is not viable. It would be good if the flying school is turned into something else. I do not think its graduates do still have opportunities if an instructor has not been paid for three months. When you see hings happen, usually somebody has taken a bold decision. I hope you will take that decision.
In its hay days, the flying school trained pilots for the region mainly the East African airways and other airlines in the region. Today, the school is white elephant. Unfortunately Uganda’s aviation industry is not something to write on about. Kenya has a booming industry. Ethiopia probably is best placed in the region because it has the biggest airline in Africa. South Africa is an aggressive new comer in the aviation industry. Given all this with poor funding, the flying school is dead meat. I was recently in Nairobi and I read about East African flying school. I am aware, I hope it is not the same that the Wilson airport in Nairobi has a flying school. Given Uganda’s decimal position in the regions aviation industry, the flying school is not viable. It would be good if the flying school is turned into something else. I do not think its graduates do still have opportunities if an instructor has not been paid for three months. When you see hings happen, usually somebody has taken a bold decision. I hope you will take that decision.
PS. I have used this media because there is no other way to be heard. I have written about Uganda airlines, nobody talks about
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