The never-ending orgy of waste that has bit Ghana Airways seems to have hit an all time high with fresh revelations that six pilots who were trained at great expense to the tax payer are not being used after their training.
The six, whose training at the world famous Oxford Air Training School in England cost 60,000 pounds sterling each at the expense of Ghana Airways, amounting to a whooping 360,000 pounds after the successful completion of their training, Conservative estimates put the amount spent on the trainee pilots at some 3.6 billion cedis. Ironically, the six who are also engineers with first degrees from various universities are on a paltry salary of seven hundred thousand cedis a month.
Though “The Independent” newspaper did not make any contact with any of the six trainee pilots, the paper’s sources say, theirs is one of misery and a feeling of despondency as the months tick by. “How can you spend such a colossal amount on pilots and prevent them from flying when they get the necessary qualifications?” a fuming Ghana Airways staff wondered. One of the six pilots is said to be a lady who is poised to make history as the first female pilot of Ghana Airways and perhaps serve as a beacon for other girls to pursue piloting as a career.
When “The Independent” reached Captain Kofi Kwakwa, the Chairman of the Management Task Force on the phone, he initially referred the paper to one Captain Folicy who was described as head of Flight Operations for the necessary answers. Captain Folicy, according to Captain Kwakwa was however said to be out of town on duty. However, Captain Kwakwa admitted the situation and said, “It is true we have six such pilots. We have no money to train them on our old aircraft. We may get new aircraft and that is when we can train them to start flying. Kwakwa also said “This is not the first time this has happened in Ghana Airways, it happened in Ghana Airways, it happened in the early eighties.”
Ghana Airways sources have however charged that monies accruing to the airline are not being used properly. One staff said “They say there is no money to train six pilots on old aircraft but managerial lapses can result in fines of 757, 000 dollars due to failure to send crew lists ahead of arrival in the United States”. Interestingly, “The Independent” found out that flights to London with the airline’s DC-10 with a capacity of 273 carry as few as 53 passengers. In another instance, another flight to London with the same aircraft carried 80 persons whilst another London flight also took off with 53 passengers and returned to Accra with 24 passengers. The New York route has also suffered with the DC-10 taking as low as 54 passengers on at least one occasion.
Tran-Atlantic calls to London to check on these happenings revealed that even the paltry figures Ghana Airways flies in to Accra with are not due to the fact that it is Summer but rather because KLM and British Airways have so much on their hand they cannot take all passengers.
