Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

For years, they’ve nav­i­gat­ed the skies of the north­ern Caribbean. Tak­ing pas­sen­gers to and from some of the most tech­ni­cal­ly chal­leng­ing air­ports in the re­gion.

Forty-year-old Cap­tain Michael Awai is the di­rec­tor of flight op­er­a­tions, a check pi­lot and ATR in­struc­tor at Winair. First Of­fi­cer 28-year-old Shane Pin­heiro is Winair’s Flight Op­er­a­tions En­gi­neer. Both Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Both with a dream of one day fly­ing back home, where their dreams of be­ing pi­lots first be­gan. They’ve been fly­ing to­geth­er on and off since Oc­to­ber 2019, and on Feb­ru­ary 1, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fly to­geth­er once again would present it­self - op­er­at­ing Winair’s in­au­gur­al flight from Sint Maarten to Port-of-Spain.

As the moun­tains of the north­ern range came in­to view, Awai took on the role of un­of­fi­cial tour guide, point­ing out parts of the is­land to the 45 VIPs, of­fi­cials, and tourists on­board. Then it was all busi­ness. Awai fo­cused on bring­ing the ATR 42-500 in (and avoid­ing the dread­ed hard land­ing) while Shane mon­i­tored the in­stru­ments and en­sured Awai re­mained with­in safe­ty mar­gins.

On the ground, me­dia, of­fi­cials, and air­port work­ers watched. Among the crowd, an emo­tion­al Karen and Ryan Pin­heiro stood in the mid­day heat, watch­ing as their son achieved some­thing he’d want­ed ever since he first de­cid­ed to be­come a pi­lot.

“I cried, yes, ab­solute­ly! Oh god, I am so proud, you don’t un­der­stand,” Karen told Guardian Me­dia. Though Pin­heiro has been fly­ing with Winair for the last sev­en years, his moth­er has been his un­of­fi­cial “co-pi­lot” long be­fore that. “I have flown with him be­fore, right here in Pi­ar­co, many years ago, when he was train­ing to get his li­cence. He had me do some stop-and-goes in the night with him, which was a lit­tle daunt­ing be­cause he was on­ly 16 at the time,” she re­called.

For both Awai and Pin­heiro, it’s both ex­cit­ing and a re­lief to fi­nal­ly land in Trinidad in a com­mer­cial ca­pac­i­ty. “Feels good, you know, it’s one of those buck­et list items to tick off, grow­ing up you al­ways want to fly to where you start­ed,” Shane told Guardian Me­dia.

At the of­fi­cial wel­come cer­e­mo­ny, of­fi­cials hailed the new flight con­nec­tion as a win for the re­gion. Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty (AATT) Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Hay­den New­ton de­scribed it as the “cul­mi­na­tion of count­less years of courtship, col­lab­o­ra­tion, care­ful plan­ning, and shared in­tent”. Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our, him­self a com­mer­cial pi­lot, ex­plained the role avi­a­tion plays in Caribbean de­vel­op­ment. “It im­proves ac­cess, sup­ports trade and tourism, and ex­pands trav­el op­tions for our cit­i­zens. For busi­ness­es, it cre­ates new com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties,” he said. And Trade, In­vest­ment, and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj high­light­ed the po­ten­tial for mul­ti-des­ti­na­tion trav­el. He said, “It sup­ports high­er val­ue vis­i­tor ar­rivals for our fes­ti­vals, con­fer­ences, and events, and strength­ens the flow of trav­ellers be­tween the North­ern Caribbean and the South­ern Caribbean.”

But for Pin­heiro, it’s sim­pler. It’s a chance to come home more reg­u­lar­ly. “I miss the food and cul­ture,” he said with a smile. And for Ryan and Karen, a chance to see their son a lit­tle more of­ten. “He’s a very calm in­di­vid­ual,” said Karen, “and it’s just nice to have an­oth­er adult in the home.”