Oct 12, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 16 segments
In this episode of Let’s Wing It, host Ruben Delmage sits down with pilot Rudolf Lubbe for a fascinating conversation about life in aviation and what it’s really like flying seaplanes in the…
And now currently as we sit here, we're gonna get to a little bit later to, to, um, getting into the Maldives, because I believe it's a little bit more difficult now than it used to be.
But as we sit here today, what are their minimum requirements currently? Because, I mean, why I'm asking this question is there's still this whole thing, like, is there a big u- uh, uh, shortage of pilots worldwide or is that starting to, are we catching up on that? So are you seeing that with like the, the likes of TMA, uh, where they take fresh com, or is there still a quite a steady minimum requirements before you get into that?
So they take guys up to, even in my batch up, and from when I joined up until now, they take pilots with 250 hours-
And there's a constant demand, so people join, and then some people will leave again.
Since there was a large group of expats back then, they will all leave, the younger guys, to go to the airlines.
And what Maldives has also done is during every new presidency election, the president promises a lot of things for the people.
So, um, the previous president had like 400 locals they sent for training, some of them here in South Africa in George and some of them, most of them in Philippines.
They, they gave them a budget for their flight training because they're trying to prioritize Maldivians in the industry and specifically in TMA.
So now it's a, it's a case where there's more than 50 qualified pilots in, in Maldives waiting for a job, so which, which they don't get at the moment since it's full.
... basically waiting for the expats to leave and the old guys to retire so they can just step in.
And now currently as we sit here, we're gonna get to a little bit later to, to, um, getting into the Maldives, because I believe it's a little bit more difficult now than it used to be.
But as we sit here today, what are their minimum requirements currently? Because, I mean, why I'm asking this question is there's still this whole thing, like, is there a big u- uh, uh, shortage of pilots worldwide or is that starting to, are we catching up on that? So are you seeing that with like the, the likes of TMA, uh, where they take fresh com, or is there still a quite a steady minimum requirements before you get into that?
So they take guys up to, even in my batch up, and from when I joined up until now, they take pilots with 250 hours-
And there's a constant demand, so people join, and then some people will leave again.
Since there was a large group of expats back then, they will all leave, the younger guys, to go to the airlines.
And what Maldives has also done is during every new presidency election, the president promises a lot of things for the people.
So, um, the previous president had like 400 locals they sent for training, some of them here in South Africa in George and some of them, most of them in Philippines.
They, they gave them a budget for their flight training because they're trying to prioritize Maldivians in the industry and specifically in TMA.
So now it's a, it's a case where there's more than 50 qualified pilots in, in Maldives waiting for a job, so which, which they don't get at the moment since it's full.
... basically waiting for the expats to leave and the old guys to retire so they can just step in.
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