Female Avionics Engineer Lands Dream Job
Manyunge Machaya is an avionics engineer who works in the hangars and sometimes on the line. Her life revolves around aviation and she loves everything about aircraft, especially the CRJ.
Soon after she finished her secondary education at Roma Girls School, her passion for Aviation took her to the Zambia Air Services Training Institute (ZASTI) for a three-year course in aeronautical electronics engineering.
The passionate and bold woman first landed at Proflight Zambia for industrial attachments, after which she was employed at the airline.
Manyunge looks back at a decade of her career which has been fostered at Proflight Zambia. “I’ve grown from an intern to a licensed avionics engineer right here at Proflight,” she recalls.
Engineering is a male-dominated field which many people believe is too technical but this didn’t deter Manyunge. In fact, she encourages young girls and ladies looking at the aviation industry as a no-go area to consider it a welcoming industry. Manyunge credits her mother for her success. Her mother, who was a teacher, always told her daughter to aim high and dream big.
“Proflight Zambia accords each and everyone an opportunity to grow,” Manyunge says. The avionics engineer has been trained on the airline’s entire fleet: the Jetstream 41 (where she did her manufacturer’s training), Jetstream 32, the CRJ100 and the CRJ200.
“When in the hangars we do maintenance checks on the three types of aircraft Proflight has,” she says holding a voltage metre in one hand.
Manyunge is required to thoroughly understand the different systems on the various aircraft. Her days’ and sometimes nights’ work involves aircraft electrical systems, aircraft radios and aircraft instruments.
“The senior engineers in the hangar are very understanding, accommodating and patient, but there is need to put in effort and a lot of reading to understand how the whole system runs,” she says.
“Not only has Proflight Zambia trained me but it has also enabled me to work on the entire fleet, for which I’m grateful.”
Manyunge Machaya wishes to see Proflight grow its fleet, which she believes will create more jobs and also looks forward to enhancing her skills in the aviation industry.
“The world is free for everyone; it is up to you as an individual to take up what you want. Don’t expect anyone to give you something. You have to strive, read, and have a goal,” she concluded.
