Captain Feriel Ally joins elite group of women pilots

Jul 14, 2012 News

Captain Feriel Ally of Air Services Limited (ASL) made history on July 12 by joining a small elite group of women in Guyana to pilot the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft.

Captain Feriel Ally

Ally, daughter of Guyana’s aviation pioneer Yacoob Mazaharally, began her aviation career in 1989 when she obtained her private pilot’s licence. She obtained her commercial pilot’s licence in 1998 in the United States.
Ally is now qualified to pilot the Cessna Grand Caravan—a 13-seat turbo-prop aircraft, which is in demand due to its greater speed, silence and seating capacity. It is also a favourite in the industry because of its reliability, better fuel efficiency and greater passenger and cargo capacity.
In Guyana, Ms. Ally built her hours flying the Cessna 172 and 206 ferrying supplies into the remote and challenging airstrips of the timber concessions owned by A. Mazaharally and Sons Limited, the parent company of Air Services Limited.
Carrying on the ASL tradition of commitment to community development and matched by unbroken service to the residents of Region Eight, Captain Ally has become a well-known shuttle captain in what was a male-dominated niche of aviation.
ASL has invested heavily in its Mahdia hangar from which over 300,000 lbs per month of cargo and passengers are shuttled from Mahdia to the challenging interior airstrips.
Captain Ally is also fully qualified in aviation management and worked as Deputy Manager of Airport Operations at Cheddi Jagan International Airport followed by many years in the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), the industry’s regulatory body, as an aviation inspector.
ASL’s Operations Manager, Annette Arjoon-Martins said; “ASL is extremely proud of Captain Feriel’s achievements and celebrates the fact that it has the first female Caravan pilot in its crew. This milestone will be captured when celebrating 100 years of Aviation in Guyana in 2013.”
Arjoon-Martins, who is also a pilot said, Ally qualified on the Britten Norman Islander twin-engine aircraft – the aircraft of choice for the tourism and corporate sectors– “and became a fast favourite with the corporate executives who would request that she be their pilot.”