Budget airline pilots fly Zuma

Will Gant

President Zuma is being flown to official engagements by pilots from budget airline Kulula because of a chronic shortage of qualified air force personnel, it has emerged.

Up to 12 pilots are on loan to "assist" 21 Squadron transport the President and his entourage across the globe, the airline's director of flight operations Martin Louw said.

As part of a deal reached in the past two months, Kulula pilots flew Zuma to Italy for the G-8 summit on July 8, and again to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for a Non-Aligned Movement conference days later.

"The air force has a shortage of pilots, and so we were requested by their chief to assist in flying the President," Louw told The Citizen.

The presidential jet, a customised Boeing 737-7ED dubbed ‘‘Inkwazi" (Fish Eagle), came into service in 2002 after its purchase for a reported R510 million.

Democratic Alliance (DA) defence spokesman David Maynier said that the arrangement - until now kept secret - demonstrated the lack of "combat readiness" of the South African Air Force (SAAF).

"Remuneration levels are not attractive to pilots," he said.

"Because of a shortage of funding, pilots are spending very little time in the air. At the end of the day, pilots want to fly - and they are not being given that opportunity."

Meanwhile, department of defence spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya blamed shortages on the poaching of the SAAF's pilots - "among the best in the world," he said - by foreign airlines.

"It is for this reason that the aviation industry across the world recruits from our ranks," he said.

Source: The Citizen