Addu City, Maldives – AAA engineers have departed from Maldives earlier today.
The engineers have left for their home countries of India and Sri Lanka after submitting their resignation last night, following no solutions to multiple issues at the flight school.
All 14 engineers working at AAA passed their resignation due to negligence from the flight school.
According to local news “Addulive”, the engineers are resigning due to unpaid wages and other issues. While AAA asked two senior engineer and two technicians to return to work on shift basis, the others were told to not return. The engineers requested to return to work but were ignored by the management.
In May 2020, the technicians were paid 0 percent salary while the store keeper was given 15 percent of the salary. Until September 2020, technicians were paid an amount between USD 20 to 90.
90 percent of the engineers were paid 0 percent of their salary since September 2020. 70 percent salary was paid since January 2021 with half in MVR causing major issues for the staff.
The school has given no attention to the resignation notices since 2020. The engineers met with the schools Head of Training Suranjan De Silva without any progress. The staff accuse De Silva of autocratic decision making and abusive language use at work.
The engineers also accuse AAAs Continuous Airworthiness Management Organization (CAMO) manager of not having enough experience and giving dates to Civil Aviation Authority without prior discussion with engineers.
The engineers stayed at the school with all the challenges for the students, however, after prolonged negligence by AAA they have decided to resign with De Silva’s recommendation.
A week ago, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih released information regarding some of the issues of Asian Academy of Aeronautics (AAA). The President has ordered to,
- Investigate the Head of Pilot training and the accountable manager as per the problems noted in the audit by the Civil Aviation Authority.
- Investigate the Civil Aviation Authority for neglect, due to the delay in solving the AAA issues through an independent commission.
- Transfer the student loans taken from Bank of Maldives to Ministry of Higher Education due to increasing interests.
In the series of problems at AAA, most recently, the flight school engineers resigned this month while instructors held a strike last month due to unpaid wages.
In addition to staff, the students studying in AAA have also expressed their concern about to the lack of equipment and materials in the school since the last six months, in the statement released by the student union condemning the government and parliament.
