KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Ke­to­nia Do­minique as­pires to serve as a role mod­el for young women. The 25 year old aims to be­come a pi­lot for the na­tion­al car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines and has al­ready made his­to­ry by be­com­ing the first lo­cal­ly trained fe­male to at­tain a pi­lot’s li­cence in T&T.

“I don’t think there are words to de­scribe how I feel; it is a very sur­re­al thing,” she said.

“I am very hap­py right now and very thank­ful for the train­ing to be over, I can’t put it in­to words. I am just very proud of my­self, and I am very hap­py right now.

“I was al­ways the role mod­el to speak; I have a lot of cousins who would look up to me, and now it is just on a wider scale.”

The for­mer Wood­brook Sec­ondary School stu­dent said her al­ma mater was “over the moon.”

“There’s a page on Face­book; all the teach­ers have been call­ing me and mes­sag­ing me,” she said.

“They want me to come back to the school to do ca­reer days; they are su­per ex­cit­ed.”

Do­minique, who trained at Aer­i­al World Ser­vices Lim­it­ed in Cam­den, Cou­va, said there are oth­er women in the pro­gramme as well.

“I hon­est­ly did not know un­til down to the very end when I did the flight test that I would be cre­at­ing his­to­ry,” she said.

“Every­thing hap­pened re­al­ly quick­ly. I was just try­ing to get it done. I re­al­ly want­ed to be a com­mer­cial pi­lot, and that is what I was fo­cussing on. The own­er of the school, Mr Nigel called me in­to the of­fice and said, ‘You know you are the first fe­male to do this, the first lo­cal­ly trained fe­male pi­lot in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I was like, re­al­ly? And he was like, ‘yes’!

“There were so many emo­tions at the time; I was shocked, I felt re­al­ly, re­al­ly hap­py, re­al­ly proud. The whole thing was an adren­a­line rush.”

Do­minique said that of­ten­times peo­ple tend to look down on the sec­ondary schools in the coun­try.

“Some of the best teach­ers are at those schools,” she said.

“I think it is about the child and what they put in­to it and not the name of the school.”

Do­minique de­cid­ed on be­com­ing a pi­lot at kinder­garten. The in­spi­ra­tion came dur­ing a field trip to the old air­port in Pi­ar­co.

“At that time you could have gone to the look­out and seen where the air­craft land­ed,” she re­mem­bered.

“When we came back, I saw a fe­male pi­lot, and I said I want to be like her; I want to fly an air­craft, and I just stuck with it through pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school, I stuck with it. Here I am now.”

Her road to suc­cess was not a smooth one. Do­minique be­gan her pi­lot stud­ies in 2017, but when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, the jour­ney be­came bumpy.

“COVID hit when I start­ed my com­mer­cial part of the train­ing,” she said.

“It put a big pause on every­thing; just like the world, every­thing was on pause for two years. I just had to stay mo­ti­vat­ed and study ever so of­ten be­cause I want­ed when things opened back up and every­thing came back to nor­mal, I want­ed to be at the same lev­el or even bet­ter than I was be­fore.”

Do­minique be­gan fly­ing the Di­a­mond DA 20 and then the Di­a­mond DA 40.

“My first so­lo flight, I was scream­ing in my head,” she said.

“I was not scared at all. As I took off, it was just noth­ing. I was there, en­joy­ing every sec­ond of it. It was just right.”

In Sep­tem­ber, Do­minique will be­gin her mul­ti-en­gine in­stru­ment rat­ing to fly a larg­er air­craft.

“I am very ex­cit­ed, a lit­tle anx­ious about it be­cause I know it is go­ing to be a lot of work, but I am ready,” she added.

“My dream is to fly for our na­tion­al car­ri­er, Caribbean Air­lines, so I will be send­ing my ap­pli­ca­tion to them, pray­ing to God and let­ting him han­dle the rest,” she said.

As for the fu­ture, “I see my­self work­ing at Caribbean Air­lines, fly­ing all over the world, liv­ing my dream, and be­ing a good ex­am­ple for oth­er women out there so that they could know that noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble. With prayers, hard work, and faith, you can get it done.”

Her ad­vice for oth­er women want­i­ng to en­ter the world of avi­a­tion.

“I would tell them that you have to want this; it is a lot of work, and you have to make a lot of sac­ri­fices,” she said.

“Your dreams and your goals are your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. You may feel tired and want to give up. Don’t take a break. Do what you need to do to get your­self back to­geth­er, but con­tin­ue. You have to push through.”

Do­minique thanked her par­ents, Brod­er­ick Bac­chus and Keti­na Do­minique-Bac­chus, along with her grand­fa­ther Mervyn Do­minique, for their sup­port­ive role in her life.