December 20, 2017: Amsale Gualu, the Ethiopian Airlines pilot who a led a historic an all-female inter – Africa flight last weekend has expressed joy at the feat her team chalked.
She was speaking after the five-and-half hour flight from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa landed at the Lagos International airport on Saturday, December 16, 2017.
She told pressmen who gathered at a short ceremony at the airport about how she developed love for flying planes: “I guess I developed my passion for flying when I was young, my father used to take my sister to the airport to see airplanes take off and land.
“When I was in high school also, I used to be impressed by the (pilots) uniform. And I guess that is where my passion for flying developed. After graduating from Addis Ababa University, I joined Ethiopian Airlines as a first officer.
“Then I went all the way up. I flew Fokker 50 and Boeing 767 as a first officer, then I became a captain in 2010, then as a captain I flew 767 and now I’m here on the 777 aircraft, the latest aircraft.”
The entire team managing the flight from Addis Ababa comprised of women, from the pilots and cabin crew to in flight ramp operations as well as flight dispatchers on the ground. The flight was received with water canon salute in Lagos.
Again, @flyethiopian has made Nigeria and Africa proud with the first international all women flight to Lagos, #Nigeria. The Boeing 777-300ER flight was commanded by beautiful Captain Amsale Gualu. #FlyEthiopian #ProudlyAfrican #Boeing777
Amsale has been directly involved in the two all-female flights Ethiopian Airlines have rolled out in the last two years. In 2015, she and a co-pilot, Selam Tesfaye were handed the task of flying Ethiopian’s first all-female flight from Addis Ababa to Bangkok in Thailand.
Nkiru Onyejeocha, a Nigerian legislator who met them at the airport lauded the airline for sticking with Nigeria through its recession and for being the first international flight to accept to land in Kaduna at a time when the Abuja airport was closed for runway repairs.
AfricaNews