Ch­agua­nas res­i­dent Ke­to­nia Do­minique, 25, cre­at­ed lo­cal avi­a­tion his­to­ry when on Ju­ly 11 she com­plet­ed her train­ing to at­tain her com­mer­cial pi­lot li­cence, mak­ing her the first lo­cal­ly trained fe­male com­mer­cial pi­lot.

Do­minique said her jour­ney was not an easy one. She be­gan train­ing in 2017 but the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic ground­ed her hopes of tak­ing to the skies.

How­ev­er, de­spite this chal­lenge, Do­minique made it to her class­es at the Cam­den Air­field, Cou­va, where she trained with Aer­i­al World Ser­vices Lim­it­ed.

She said, “My dream of be­com­ing a pi­lot start­ed at a young age. It all start­ed with a field trip to the old air­port in preschool where I be­came very in­ter­est­ed and in­spired to take on the chal­lenge to be a pi­lot.”

She con­tin­ued, “Be­ing the first lo­cal­ly trained fe­male com­mer­cial pi­lot in the coun­try is sur­re­al. I am filled with so many emo­tions I don’t even think I can ex­plain. God knows how hard I’ve worked and how many sac­ri­fices it took to be here. I couldn’t do this alone. My close friends and fam­i­ly have sup­port­ed me so much.”

Do­minique said her par­ents Brod­er­ick Bac­chus and Keti­na Do­minique-Bac­chus, along with her grand­fa­ther Mervyn Do­minique, played a piv­otal role in her growth and de­vel­op­ment.

“They, along­side my un­paid ther­a­pist un­cle Kir­wyn, my aunt Kervell and my cousins, es­pe­cial­ly Sheikana Do­minique, have al­ways been the best sup­port sys­tem to me. This suc­cess is just as much theirs as it is mine. For every hard phase, they’ve been there to sup­port with en­cour­ag­ing words, ex­tra hugs and gen­uine love and ad­vice. My moth­er is my rock and no mat­ter what, she al­ways sup­ports me, push­es me and al­ways knows the per­fect thing to say or do every time. My grand­fa­ther’s nev­er too busy for me, al­ways there to en­cour­age me to pray, keep the faith and re­mem­ber that God is in con­trol,” she ex­plained.

The 25-year-old said get­ting her com­mer­cial li­cence is just the be­gin­ning of many more great things to come.

“My next step would be to get my mul­ti-en­gine in­stru­ment rat­ing and al­so fur­ther my ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. My goal is to fly for our na­tion­al car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines and I can’t wait un­til I get there. I’m so thank­ful for every­thing and so grate­ful to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share my sto­ry,” she said.

Do­minique said the qual­i­fi­ca­tions need­ed to be­come a pi­lot are that you need to be at least 16 years of age and must have at least five CXC pass­es in­clud­ing Math­e­mat­ics and Eng­lish Lan­guage. She said an as­pir­ing pi­lot must be healthy and be able to pass all med­ical ex­ams to be deemed fit to fly.

Do­minique has en­cour­aged all young women not to be afraid to dream.

“My ad­vice to the young women of to­day is that no dream is out of reach and I know that it’s so com­mon to say hard work and con­sis­ten­cy but it’s the truth. Re­mem­ber to put God first in every­thing you do, pray, work hard, be con­sis­tent, self-mo­ti­vat­ed and keep the faith. Even when you feel like giv­ing up, keep go­ing, trust me. If you need to pause for a mo­ment to de-stress, cry or even just not do any­thing that’s okay, just nev­er quit. Don’t ever give up on your­self. Your dreams are your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty so pray and work hard and God will han­dle the rest.”