For every Jamaican who makes the nightly news in a negative way, there are scores more who continue to soar to higher heights and make their country proud.
Among them is United Arab Emirates (UAE) first officer Ryan Gourzong, a 35-year-old Cornwall College and Wings Jamaica Limited graduate, who has the enviable achievement of being one of only two Jamaicans now flying the A380 superjumbo aircraft anywhere in the world. His friend, Craig Shim, is the other local pilot who holds that distinction. Both passed up an opportunity for promotion to captain, opting instead to learn to fly the new plane.
Prior to taking on his present role, Gourzong worked with Air Jamaica for six years; but now that he is living in Dubai, he has no plans to leave as long as there is a position for him in the UAE.
Prestigious training
On a recent trip home, he spoke exclusively with The Sunday Gleaner. He revealed that pilots were selected for the prestigious training on the basis of seniority and the bidding process. “You would have had to be flying with the company for a while and training began last summer for 18 intensive days in Dubai and France,” he said.
The A380
There was much fanfare when the world’s largest plane, a double-decker passenger jet, rolled on to the tarmac. And rightly so; to contemplate its size, picture the distance between two goal posts on a football field. The A380 will almost fill it and its wingtips would reach the sidelines! There is a grand staircase towards the front of the craft and another at the back and there is ample space for sleeper cabins, business centres, or childcare services.
The gigantic airbus can accommodate anywhere from 550-840 passengers and fly up to distances of 10,000 miles non-stop. There are two attendants just for the purpose of taking care of the first-class toilets and showers. The aircraft uses a crew of four pilots and about 27 flight attendants. And, passengers in first class are served a seven-course meal at dinner time on long-haul flights. The aircraft itself is the largest passenger aircraft, with new technology in avionics and composite materials.
Luxury airline
An Airbus A380 double-decker superjumbo takes off for the first long-distance test flight with hundreds of passengers on board drawn from Airbus staff and cabin-design specialists in Toulouse, southwestern France, recently. – Reuters
Suffice it to say that Emirates will be the largest operator of the A380 aircraft, with 58 on order. So far, they have received four for the New York, London, Heathrow and Sydney/-Auckland routes. The aircraft now flying in the Emirates are configured with 14 first-class cabins. Here, each passenger has his or her own mini-cabin. You electronically close your cabin doors as you require, after take-off. Included in the cabin is a mini-bar, a 21-inch television screen with 500 channels of music and the same of TV, new films and others. Of course, there is also a sleeper (bed) with massage facilities.
There are 74 business-class seats, without cabins, but with full sleeper flat beds. The first- and business-class seats are on the upper deck, along with two showers and a lounge. The remaining 380 economy seats are on the lower deck. The Emirates aircraft at present is configured for well below 500 passengers.
Exquisite pilot
Gurzong remains unfazed by his achievements and by the fact that he is in the cockpit of such a luxurious flying machine. He said the A380 flies like all other commercial jets, but it is capable of doing a great deal more. “It can carry 1.3 million pounds of cargo and does not require a longer runway, but the wings are so huge, you can approach landing at a lower speed,” Gourzong said.
Leroy Lindsay, a Jamaican now residing in Florida, who worked with Emirates Airline in Dubai for 15 years. Lindsay has high praises for Gourzong, describing him thus: “Ryan is an exquisite pilot and was even involved in teaching aircraft performance to Air Jamaica pilots before joining Emirates. That sentiment is echoed by Air Jamaica’s Captain David McRae who described Gourzong as a great pilot and conscientious first officer. But I am not surprised, because it’s the foundation we got in the training from Air Canada and the high standards that we all maintain. He has overall ability and is able to communicate well with all members of the team as well as management and his co-workers.”
Change of scene
But just how did Gourzong get to this point? The former Air Jamaica pilot is one of the many who went to Dubai and other parts of the Middle East when some pilots decided they needed a change of scene. The way was paved by Lindsay who is currently an international aviation consultant and senior associate with an aviation consultative-management company. After his retirement from Emirates in December 2006, he was the head of the Emirates airbus fleet, with over 1,000 pilots and 55 airbuses.
In an email interview, Lindsay told The Sunday Gleaner that having left Air Jamaica as a systems operations manager in 1991, he joined Emirates as senior manager for network control for seven years before being given responsibility for the pilots.
Ironically, Lindsay is not a pilot, but said he has been told he is probably the first non-pilot in aviation history to have been put in charge of pilots at a major international airline. He disclosed: “I took about 15 of Air Jamaica’s pilots to Emirates and Gourzong was one of them. I also cleared the way for about 10 others to join Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi and Qatar Airways in Doha, Qatar,” Lindsay disclosed.
“Both Ryan Gourzong and Craig Shim joined as first officers on the A330 aircraft. They progressed to the A340, and recently decided to forego command on the A330 so that they would be among the first pilots to fly the superjumbo A380 aircraft,” Lindsay said.
In the middle of last month, Gourzong received a call from the administrative superintendent on the A380 fleet asking him to make the inaugural flight of the A380 to Sydney. He made the inaugural flight to Sydney. Shim had been positioned in Sydney before that so that he would be able to do the return journey to Dubai.
Gourzong, who views the decision to train for the superjumbo jet as a strategic career move, said it will be a great addition to his résumé and pilot’s licence and in another two years, he can be captain – a far cry from his start as a charter-flight pilot in Jamaica. Back then, it was a struggle, as clocking hours was not easy. There are no regrets. Life in Dubai is great. Food is expensive, but crime is practically non-existent and there are some 20 former Air Jamaica pilots there.
Gourzong is an avid sportsman who rides motorbikes competitively and also does rifle shooting for Jamaica. He is the son of businesswoman Veronica Stokes, is married with two children. He has one brother, Marco Gourzong, and one sister, Tamara Gourzong.
