I cannot believe our airline is treating local pilots like second class employees with a salary that does not equate their status. This is outright discrimination and very uncivilized attitude. How can a locally owned company treat our own citizens like this? Are our own local pilots less qualified than their foreign counterparts? What is the use of sacrificing for the company and the country when their expertise goes unrecognized? This is a dilemma that face both the private and many government institutions in the Solomon islands. These institutions lack faith in our human resource often sighting no money to sustain higher wages when in fact they can afford to renew many of these lucrative contracts for foreigners year after year.

I have no ill feelings against foreigners who are genuinely trying to assist the Solomon islands by imparting skills through training of local counterparts etc . However it is a very different scenario altogether when we already have the expertise locally and yet we still recruit from outside to fill the jobs. How will skilled Solomon islanders feel? Well, the results are quiet obvious. I am not at all surprised when we have mass exodus of local pilots taking up jobs that recognize their skills through remuneration packages and other benefits, overseas. Congratulations to Captain Elizabeth Ramoni for standing up against this kind of discrimination and all the best to Solomon Island Airlines, you may continue to recruit more foreigners to man the planes.