KIGALI, RWANDA – The Akagera helicopter flight training school in Kigali is the first academy targeting civilians in the region.
Housed at the Kigali International Airport in Kanombe on the outskirts of Kigali, the US$1.8million helicopter school is now looking at attracting students from the now wider East African Community.
“I encourage young people who want to be pilots to join us. Statistics show that aviation is one of the highest paying jobs in the world,” the general manager of Akagera Aviation Mr. Innocent Mupenzi told East African Business Week during an interview at his offices last week.
Presently, the school has 20 students, all Rwandans. 15 are studying the Private Pilot Licence (PPL) whose curriculum is completed in 11 months and five are doing the more advanced Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) that takes 16 months.
The difference between the PPL and CPL is that the latter aims to train students to become professional helicopter specialists and career pilots who can advance and ride the bigger planes.
The flight-training centre has a staff of 10 with 4 instructors from South Africa.
What does it take to join the aviation school? “Prospective students need to go through an aptitude test, industrial psychologist and medical tests too. We target senior 6 leavers and young men and ladies who are interested in aviation. When prospective students go for medicals, out of 15 about 10 are deemed fit.
“Some might have hearing or sight defects that they were not aware of,” Mr. Mupenzi told East African Business Week. The costs for both the PPL and CPL do not come cheap and is perhaps the reason why the student numbers are not filtering through as fast as envisioned. Most students are sponsored by institutions. “We rarely get people walking in as individuals saying they want to become pilots.”
Both the PPL and CPL cost between US$20,000 to $30,000 for the entire course and involves practical drills in the air, lectures and multi media classroom presentations.
The school, owned by the Akagera Aviation, a civil aviation outfit, has three helicopters purchased at $350,000 a piece.
Akagera Aviation officials plan to attend next months Uganda International Trade Fair in Kampala to further promote the training school and opportunities for those keen on progressing in the aviation sector.
