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Air Seychelles welcomes new Twin Otter aircraft |18 March 2017

• Promotes five pilots to captains

 

Air Seychelles yesterday welcomed the first of two new Twin Otter DH-6-400 aircraft into its domestic fleet.

The new D-6-H-400 turboprop aircraft has been named Isle of Praslin, after the second largest island in Seychelles. It will be used in the Air Seychelles domestic fleet along with Isle of Farquhar another D-6-400 turboprop which will be joining Air Seychelles later.

The Twin Otter was assembled in Canada and started its trip in Los Angeles California, flew to Calgary for a few days, to continue to Kujuak in the north east part of Canada to fly over Green Land to Keflavk in Ice Land, continued to Oslo in Norway, with one stop in Serbia onto Assuan in Egypt and onto Nairobi where it flew to Seychelles. The trip took eight days with approximately seventy flying hours. The aircraft was equipped with additional fuel tanks for ferry flights to allow them to increase the range to more than ten hours flying time.

To celebrate the occasion five first officer pilots of the domestic operations were promoted to the rank of captain. They were Gavin Hermitte, Balaji Naidoo, Christopher Mousbe, Michael Afif and Andy Benoit. It was the chief executive of Air Seychelles Roy Kinnear who presented and fastened the epaulettes of the newly promoted captains.

The event took place in the presence of the Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, the chairman of Air Seychelles Jean Weeling-Lee, the chief executive of the Seychelles Tourism board (STB) Sherin Francis, principal secretaries, Air Seychelles’ board members, members of the National Assembly, members of the travel trade and of the government and representatives of the interfaith community.

Minister Loustau-Lalanne, chairman Weeling-Lee and CEO Kinnear had the honour to unveil the registration number of Isle of Praslin in the presence of the five pilots and other guests. The registration operating number is  S7-PRN.

The aircraft was then blessed by Bishop James Wong of the Anglican Church and Father David Alcindor of the Catholic Church.

After giving a brief history of the arrival of the first Twin Otter in 1984, Minister Loustau-Lalane said he is confident the new Twin Otter will play a crucial role as our national carrier and drive important growth in the Seychelles economy well into the 21st century.

“These aircraft connect Seychellois, business travellers and holidaymakers to places in Seychelles that are otherwise largely inaccessible,” he noted.

Congratulating the Seychellois captains on their promotion, Minister Loustau-Lalanne said: “Without our pilots these birds would not be in the air. It makes me very proud of the Seychellois pilot community growing under the flag of the national carrier and I look forward to seeing more young Seychellois and Seychelloises choosing this exciting profession which gives them the opportunity to grow from the Twin Otters to the Air Bus jet planes,” he added.

Mr Kinnear thanked all those involved in getting the aircraft to Seychelles and added that the arrival of Isle of Praslin, which will replace an old Twin Otter,  demonstrates another major investment in Air Seychelles for the future of island travel and the Seychelles economy.

He said that most of the previous Twin Otters have exceeded 30 years of service and the new ones of the six aircraft will go for another 30 years with the oldest Twin Otter being only five years old.

“That is a fantastic new age, young fleet, good reliability, right aircraft for the region …. and that gives us an exciting footing for the years ahead,” he said, adding that the domestic operation has always been a big focus at Air Seychelles and acquiring modern new aircraft is the company’s commitment to making the service better.

He said Air Seychelles will increase the number of weekly flights to 300, meaning up to 60 flights per day on a Friday. Launching of a web check-in for residents to purchase tickets is the next step in the development journey.

Noting that around 70% of Air Seychelles’ pilots are Seychellois (66 Seychellois pilots out of 92 pilots), CEO Kinnear congratulated the five new captains saying: “At the same time we have put lot of effort into creating a very strong pilot development programme which sees a career path for Seychellois nationals progressing through first officers to captains on the Twin Otter aircraft and then onwards onto the Airbus jet fleet. I would like to congratulate our five pilots here today and moving up to the rank of captain, which is a testament to their skill and training.”

The chairman of Air Seychelles, Jean Weeling-Lee, said: “Seeing Isle of Praslin touch down this morning and our young pilots received their commander’s bars, makes me feel very proud of our national airline.”

He also revealed the company’s wish of one day all its pilots will be Seychellois.

On behalf of his colleague pilots, 29-year-old Captain Gavin Hermitte, one of the first officers promoted yesterday morning, said: “ I feel a great sense of achievement at gaining the rank of captain. It’s a goal I have worked hard towards ever since starting my career at Air Seychelles. It’s a privilege to work at Air Seychelles and the next step for me is to continue recording more flight hours to move onto bigger aircraft in the future.”

Both Twin Otter aircraft will be in service before the end of March 2017.

On average Air Seychelles flies more than 40 times between Mahé and Praslin each day with carefully scheduled morning and evening banks that connect seamlessly to international services arriving and departing from Seychelles International airport. The airline also offers charter flights to other outer islands on its Twin Otter fleet including Desroches, Bird and Denis.

 

 

 

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