'Take off to new horizons' - Article on flying as a career / authored as IRK Theophilus

Monday, Oct 31, 2005
Take off to new horizons
-IRK Theophilus
The scene in the aviation industry in India is getting hotter like never before. With a spurt in bilateral agreements being signed, more international airlines are expected to touchdown and the existing ones are looking at expansion. It is a good time to try for a job in the air.

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
This familiar refrain from the song by R. Kelly with that awesome video depicts, perhaps the highest aspiration of humankind in the sense that we can achieve greater things in life when we believe that we can. Most of you would have enjoyed those incredible moments as I did and I still do whenever I dream that I could fly and wonder how cool it would be to take those absolutely free twirls and turns giving the pure meaning to one's freedom, up there in the sky. A wish that for centuries has been expressed in different ways through countless myths and in folklore of all cultures... the wish to fly. Yes, as the song goes, it's just that dream and the belief in that dream that led the Wright Brothers to one of the greatest inventions of mankind... when they made flying an acceptable part of human existence... and eventually realising people's dreams to fly.
Like it does for all those who dream of being able to take an active part in flying today, the choices are clear and the ones who turn out to choose this dream to be their profession get to manage the controls of an aircraft and take it to safety through untold hazards of the great skies, assist people to fly and take care of them, be responsible for the people's safety through the journey and so on. These as they sound pose the biggest possible challenges in an exciting profession.
Taking up flying professionally involves more than just the desire to fly as it means being extremely focussed and determined. This also requires fulfilling some stringent physical and psychological criteria and it simply means a lot of hard work with what could be said as ``utmost dedication.'' The work is bound to be rigourous and extremely stressful with long hours and one is always on the move, waking up at different times, at different points of the globe every day of the week.
Thus it turns out to be one of those testing professions and in some cases it leads to unsatisfactory family life coupled with all the dangers of flying that the job involves. And this very fact could well be the reason for the considerably higher monetary compensations, but what really adds all the colour to this high flying career is the undeniable thrill and excitement of making your way up in the unlimited skies which actually gives one that awesome and triumphant feeling of having conquered nature at its upper limits.
The scene in the aviation industry in India is getting hotter like never before. With a spurt in bilateral agreements being signed, more international airlines are expected to touchdown in the country and the existing airlines are looking at increasing their frequency and starting operations from new centres within the country. It is estimated that the passenger traffic in India is likely to increase by leaps and bounds over the next three to four years and the Indian authorities have reportedly said that the domestic and international air traffic will increase by about 20 per cent annually because of investments from the government and private sectors. The experts feel that the bullish aviation industry would bring enormous opportunities for people making a career with the industry because of the obvious reason that the need for trained professionals will be greatly felt over the next five years.
With an incredible scenario setting in, it only throws open the gates of unlimited opportunities to all the young minds who are looking to get on board in pursuit of those high-flying careers in the Indian Aviation Industry.
Your piece of the unlimited sky could well be in different shades and could vary depending on your strengths and your interests but all within the dream to fly. You could choose to be a pilot manning those giant machines that are growing in number by leaps and bounds, and to be trained to be one, there are specialised institutions such as Orient flight School, a part of the HIET group (www.hindustancollege.com/ofs) in Chennai and Madras flying club, Chennai.
There are plenty of opportunities to go abroad and take this study and you can choose the destination to get your own wings on, such as the flight training school in South Africa (http://www.flighttraining.co.za/) , and always remember, the pilot training is an unending process as you need to keep updating your flying skills as and when the machines you fly get updated.
For all those wannabe airhostess, cabin crew and other in-flight service professionals, you can check out the specialised institutes such as AHA (http://www.airhostessacademy.com/) , Frankfinn Academy (http://www.fiatfrankfinn.com/) and LIVE-SATM at Loyola Campus for other related and certified courses.
Reiterating the fact that there is a world of opportunities with only the skies as the limits and having started this article with those first lines of the song, let me end it up with the ones that followed, with the hope that they give you all the motivation to `get on board'.
Hey, cause' I believe in me...
oh if I can see it
then I can do it
if I just believe it
then there's nothing to it...
I believe I can fly


- IRK (Immanuel Raj Kumar) Theophilus
Monday, Oct 31, 2005
The Hindu - Education Plus