Aviation sector ‘experiencing brain drain’

Transport minister John Mutorwa says Namibia is besieged with a brain drain in the aviation sector, a situation which will need to be addressed.He made the contribution during his ministry’s budget motivation in the National Assembly last week.Despite its high investment in aviation, Namibia still does not have enough professionals in the sector, he said.“Namibia has invested in the training and education of aviation professionals since independence and has also benefitted from international solidarity training initiatives.”However, most of these scarce resources leave the sector due to retirement as well as for high-paying international institutions, to advance their careers in other fields or after being promoted into senior positions, “thus leaving a vacuum at operational level”, he added.Aviation Centre of ExcellenceNamibia is set to partner with Finnish company Airrhow to address its skills shortcomings in the sector.“One of the initiatives that Namibia has embarked upon to address this serious brain drain and retention challenge is our partnership with the Finnish Airrhow Group to establish an Aviation Centre of Excellence in Namibia. This will ensure that Namibia has adequate skilled aviation personnel to cater for its market and beyond,” he said.Mutorwa also addressed the inability of aviation investigators to remain on par with training standards due to restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.According to him, investigators were unable to undergo training outside the country.“Investigators were unable to maintain proficiency due to travel restrictions to undergo recurrent training, thus [this] is envisaged to be finalised.”An amount of N$6.8 million will be set aside to address training shortcomings.NCAAMutorwa added that the Namibia Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will also need to be adequately capitalised due to the decline in air travel and aeronautical fees collected.“There is a need to recapitalise the NCAA financially in order to sustain Namibia’s state obligations towards the Chicago Convention, while slowly recovering from the effects of Covid-19 and introducing new complementary charges that will help reduce dependency on Treasury in future,” he said.

Aviation sector ‘experiencing brain drain’

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

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Aviation sector ‘experiencing brain drain’

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

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