KALPA (Kenya Airline Pilots Association) is the umbrella body representing professional pilots in Kenya, majority of whom are in the employment of a major local operator.
 

KALPA is an active member of IFALPA (International Federation of Airline Pilots Association), the mother organisation representing and co-ordinating professional Airline Pilots Associations worldwide.
 

In recognition of the growing importance of Kenya as an emerging and robust aviation hub, IFALPA, at the invitation of KALPA successfully hosted on October 25th-27th 2011, its annual AFI/MID (Africa and Middle-East) regional meeting in Nairobi where fruitful deliberations with industry stakeholders were held.
 

Through its steadily growing professional membership, KALPA seeks to continue to UPHOLD and ENHANCE the HIGHEST SAFETY STANDARDS required in this very SAFETY CONSCIOUS industry.
 

As we all know, the growth of the aviation industry and the strategic position of Kenya as a potential major regional aviation hub has informed the decision by the Government of Kenya to recognise the industry as a cornerstone of ‘Vision 2030’.
 

The KAA (Kenya Airports Authority) has gallantly taken up this challenge with vigour as seen by commencement of major infrastructural projects at Kisumu International Airport and J.K.I.A. The Industry eagerly awaits ground breaking of the Greenfield Terminal.
 

To affirm its commitment in ‘Vision 2030’, the Government of Kenya has chosen to exercise her rights in the just concluded rights issue of the National carrier. The acquisition of a 7.4% stake of the National carrier by the World Banks’ development arm, IFC (International Finance Corporation), and further commitment to finance its expansion serves to confirm to all stakeholders that the industry is steering the right course.
 

We would also like to encourage the Government to continue to increase funding to the KCAA (Kenya Civil Aviation Authority) to ensure its continued independence as it executes this herculean regulatory task. This will not only allow KCAA to be able to afford much needed talent to complement its existing work-force but also discourage KCAA from passing on the cost of regulation to the air operators, rendering them less able to remain competitive with regional and international competitors.
 

A strong believer in BRAND KENYA, KALPA whole-heartedly embraces “Vision 2030”, informed that it will lift KENYA and Kenyans to greater heights. We strongly believe and continue to advocate that the cockpits of Kenyan registered aircrafts continue to be flown by Kenyan pilots.
 

Various articles have quoted industry stakeholders intimating pilot shortages and predicting further deepening of the same in the future.
 

KALPA has noted with concern this pattern of mis-information highlighted in both print and electronic media and would like to take the earliest opportunity to set the record straight.
 

FACT 1. The Kenyan market remains able to meet the current and future demand for pilots. The numbers of pilots graduating, training and enrolling into local Flight Training Schools (FTS) will confirm this.
 

FACT 2. These Schools (major investments of industrious and hard-working Kenyans) mostly located at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport, continue to churn out very able and well trained CPL (Commercial Pilot Licence) holders who meet the minimum requirements for employment by all categories of air operators.
 

FACT 3. Any credible Flight Training School should be able to guarantee graduation of a pilot in not more that one and a half years and not the three to four years published in one of the local dailies.
 

FACT 4. Depending on the sophistication of the aircraft operated by air operators, only a maximum of 6 months is needed to put these FTS graduates through additional transitional training to become fully qualified pilots on the specific aircraft type.
 

FACT 5. Hard working Kenyan parents continue to SACRIFICE and INVEST in their children’s future by sponsoring their enrolment in Flight Training Schools in the belief that they will attain gainful employment upon graduation. To put it into perspective, the investment cost is in excess of Kshs. 5million. These parents deserve better than seeing their children labour to get jobs while potential employers ‘import’ labour.
 

FACT 6. Contrary to belief, NO operator in Kenya offers cadet ‘sponsorship’ program. Any such previous program has since been transformed into a completely different program. For truth’s sake, we would like this to be portrayed in it’s correct context.
 

FACT 7. The Kenyan aviation market has a large pool of highly experienced, high flight-time pilots. Since time immemorial, these pilots have successfully been recruited to sustain the growth of several local airlines that have since experienced tremendous growth over the past few years. In addition many have since been
employed by new foreign airlines and major world carriers. Majority would rather be working for their country KENYA.
 

A casual inquiry into the above statements will easily confirm their accuracy. Any narrative contrary to the above is outrightly FALSE.
 

As the main catalysts of growth, major operators provide much needed highly skilled jobs to a country’s CITIZENS. The onus is on them to not only seek to retain the pilots within their ranks, but also deploy a patriotic, proactive and aggressive approach to recruitment by tapping into the blossoming local market as follows;
 

1. Develop and continue to mould First Officers/Co-pilots already in their employment in preparation for Captains’ role. This then guarantees a continued supply of Captains.
 

2. GENUINE and PRO-ACTIVE assimilation of pilots with extensive prior flying experience. This provides a steady and viable supply of experienced pilots, easily malleable to any operators SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) with the requisite experience to take up Captain positions in less than 2 years. 

Additionally, this serves to open up employment opportunities within the ranks of smaller operators to new graduate pilots.
 

3. Employment of pilot graduates to compliment the above categories.
 

This provides a fresh supply of youthful talent for future growth.

KALPA considers any claim that a qualified labour force does not exist presently in the country to be an unfortunate attempt to export jobs at the expense of well deserving KENYANS.
 

Finally, KALPA remains grateful to the Government of Kenya for not allowing such unpatriotic attempts by not issuing work-permits a few years ago when a major operator advanced a similar agenda. We remain convinced that this position remains unchanged.
 

The KENYAN GOVERNMENT has set the tone, KENYAN INVESTORS taken the initiative, KENYAN PROFESSIONALS and KENYAN PARENTS heeded the call...No KENYAN should be left behind! Vision 2030, here we come.
 

General Secretary & CEO
Capt. Ronald Karauri
10th May 2012
 

“USALAMA ANGANI”

This is to inform all our esteemed customers and the general public that all Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) facilities are operating at full capacity and there has been no disruptions of any operations due to an illegal strike called by the Aviation and Allied Workers Union (AAWU).

Kindly note that the Industrial Court via an order dated 3rd April 2012 issued an injunction against the said strike by AAWU. It is important to note that the court has declared the alleged strike illegal and all employees and the union have been served with the court order.

KAA wishes to further state that it has positioned enough personnel at all the key facilities including security screening, fire services, ground flight safety, engineering and maintenance.

In addition to this, government security agencies who ordinarily operate at all our airports are supporting the various services.

All scheduled flights have taken off and landed on time. We do not foresee any disruption of operations in our airports. Moreover, a significant number of unionisable staff have reported to work despite intimidation by those taking part in the illegal strike.

KAA prides itself in being an employer of choice. The average entry level salary and emoluments for typical unionisable stall with a KCSE qualification of grade C without any additional academic and professional qualification is Ksh 63,000 broken down as follows:

This is way above the average in both the private and public sector salaries for officers with the same qualifications.

In addition, employees enjoy the following benefits:

KAA management and union have been engaged in the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations up to and including Tuesday 27th March 2012 with further meetings planned.

The management was therefore perturbed that the union walked out of the negotiations process and on Wednesday 28th of March 2012, issued a strike notice.

Managing Director
Kenya Airports Authority

It is the duty of all public officials to "do something" whenever a new threat appears, even if there is nothing sensible to be done. If they don't make a show of solving the problem, the media will punish them severely.

So we have had a vigorous US government response to the recent apprehension of the Underpants Bomber. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was from Nigeria, and he was Muslim.

Therefore, the US government has announced that all travellers to the United States from Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and seven other Muslim or partly Muslim countries will face extra checks at airport security. They will be patted down by hand, and their carry-on bags will also be searched by hand. So that's all fixed, then. No more exploding underpants.

Except that Abdulmutallab's underpants were on his body, so hand searches of cabin baggage aren't going to help much. Moreover, it is far from certain that a physical pat-down of Abdulmutallab would have detected the guilty underpants.

Then there are the curious additions and omissions in the list of countries affected. Cuba is included, presumably in order to have at least one non-Muslim country on the list, although there has never been any Cuban support for anti-US terrorism. (Rather the other way around, in fact, though that was long ago now.)

More striking is the absence of Britain, France and the Netherlands from the list of countries whose travellers must get the full treatment. Britain was the home of Richard Reid, the unsuccessful Shoe Bomber, who actually departed for the US from Paris.

The group who were caught preparing to smuggle explosive liquids aboard US-bound flights in aerosol containers were British. Abdulmutallab actually passed through Schiphol airport security in the Netherlands on his way to Detroit. Why are these countries exempt?

This is starting to sound like a rant, but I'm not actually demanding more stringent security measures. I am arguing in favour of less "security" at the airport, and a lot more emphasis on real security work before the would-be bombers check in.

With the sole exceptions of Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, all the plots to blow up airliners bound for the US since 9/11 have been thwarted by the intelligence services, not by the hundreds of thousands of poorly paid "security" officers who staff the
gates at the airports. And they didn't catch either Reid or Ab-dulmutallab.

What conclusions should we draw from that? We should conclude that further "enhancements" to airport security are a total waste of time and money, although basic security that stops people from smuggling guns and knives aboard aircraft should be maintained.

Don't reward the politicians for submitting to the idiotic measures that the media demand of them.

Accept that nothing is perfect, and remember that you are still 50 times more likely to die in a car crash than in an aircraft crash, whether caused by human error, technical failure or underpants bomb.

The alternative is to try to close every loophole — and the obvious hole in airport security today is the fact that they do not check for anal bombs.

The first suicide bomber with an explosive device in his rectum has already struck, although not on an aircraft.

Four months ago, an al-Qaeda-linked militant passed through all the security checks and blew himself up during an audience with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister. His bomb was presumably detonated by remote control, but an airline passenger could simply go to the toilet and trigger it himself.

If Abdulmutallab had boarded the Detroit-bound aircraft with the explosive device inside his body rather than sewn into his underpants, how were the security staff going to find it?

Only by the time-tested method that prison guards regularly use: the "body cavity search".

This could obviously be done at airports too. You'd have to hire five or six times as many guards and expand the security area considerably to give those being searched some privacy, but if we were really determined to eliminate every threat to air travel, every suspicious body cavity could be searched.

Just bend over, please, sir or madam.

Yet nobody has proposed putting this policy into effect, and that is not because they are worried about a shortage of latex gloves. The whole airport security mania is largely symbolic, and body cavity searches would upset far more people than they would reassure — so in this case, common sense trumps "security". It should do so in many other cases too.

Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

About 10 or 15 years ago, as a Kenyan returning home from Europe, there was a small ritual you would be obliged to perform, if you happened to have struck a conversation with some European sitting next to you on the flight to Nairobi.

This ritual was that at some point after disembarking, you would have to evade your new friend, so that you did not have to go through the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport together.

The reason was that you knew there was every chance that as you entered the main buildings, you would be met by an awful smell which would indicate that the toilets had not been cleaned.

Then the automated luggage delivery system may or may not be working, and the staff meeting the disembarking passengers were likely to be rude and unhelpful.

In all, any Kenyan who in those days had some hours earlier boarded a plane at some gleaming and efficient airport in Europe would have much to be ashamed of on landing at JKIA.

This is no longer the case. By and large, the Kenya airport systems work. And though JKIA may still be more comparable to some mid-sized provincial airport in the developed world rather than the really large international air transport hubs like Heathrow or Schiphol, still it is nothing to be ashamed of.

And all this is in large part due to the current management of the Kenya Airports Authority under Managing Director George Muhoho. Any long-time user of the country's main airports will admit that Muhoho has transformed the operations of the airport.

Mind you, the widespread belief in Coast Province is that this minor miracle of management was not primarily the result of Muhoho's efforts, but rather due to the exertions of Naomi Cidi, his first deputy in the early days of the first Kibaki administration. Cidi had spent her entire career in airline and airport management before the appointment. And there is plenty of bitterness still over the manner of her exit from KAA in 2006.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that it is the CEO who usually gets credit for such success, and in this case it is Muhoho.

Now here is the odd thing: in a country like Kenya which is awash with MBAs, there is no chance whatsoever that Muhoho would have got this job through a competitive selection process. His background is not that of a professional manager. He came to the job from private business, and before that, from politics, having been an MP and even served briefly as a Cabinet minister in the Moi era. If you go yet further into his personal history, you find that he was a Catholic priest who voluntarily gave up service in the priesthood to get married.

Whichever way you look at it, there is simply no way that Muhoho would have had a chance against younger Kenyans with sterling academic qualifications and considerable management experience in various fields.

Nor is there any mystery about how he came to be appointed to this job: not only is Muhoho recognised as one of President Kibaki's personal friends, but he is also regarded as a key personal adviser.

In short, his appointment was pure political patronage. And yet he went on to be the best MD that the KAA ever had.

The case of Muhoho should be borne in mind in light of the recent Justice Aaron Ringera saga, and the temptation arising from this drama to assume that there is something inherently wrong in a President choosing top public servants without reference to Parliament or some other vetting authority.

The fact is, what should concern us is whether or not the appointee delivers. Not whether or not he was appointed solely by the President. So if we leave aside the debate on whether or not the President acted constitutionally in reappointing Justice Ringera as the Director-General of Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, the real issue is that the public had long lost confidence in him and as such the attempt to return him to this high office was a mistake.

The lesson to be drawn from the vastly improved management of Kenyan airports is that it is possible that a presidential appointee to high office, who happens to be a personal friend of the President, may feel obliged not to let his friend down.

And though the running of public institutions cannot be based solely on the appointment of personal friends to high office, such friendship is not always a barrier to managerial excellence either.

Wycliffe Muga comments on topical issues.