The proprietor of Uganda Aviation Academy, Captain Mike Mukula, has called on students looking pursuing a career in the aviation sector, to ensure discipline, hard work and resilience to achieve success in the country’s growing aviation sector.
“My appeal to you is for those who want to be pilots, you have to be disciplined, if you aren’t disciplined, you can’t be a pilot. That is an area in aviation that you want to pick all the time, as you go into this aviation industry, for me, as captain Mukula, I am a very strong disciplinary face, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke, I don’t go to bars” he said.
Capt. Mukula made the remarks during the third national aviation youth summit and career expo 2026, aimed at inspiring the next generation of aviation professionals held at St Julian High School Gayaza, on Friday.
“Uganda has just ordered through Uganda Airlines,10 brand new aircraft from Boeing, these aircrafts have a minimum weight of 80 pilots meaning a minimum of 8 to 10 pilots per aircraft, that gives you a huge number of pilots in terms of demand for the country” he said.
He added, “Secondly, you also note that the cabin crew and those who serve in the aircrafts will be an average of 24 to 25 per aircraft. If you look at Ethiopian Airlines, it has got 178 aircrafts thereabouts and they have a huge pilot crew, nearly 5,000 pilots, a huge outlay of a total of the cabin crew of 18,000, this tells you that the future is very bright for Africa”.
Capt Mukula further recommended the students pursuing science subjects at the advanced level to be best suited to pursue and become the pilots in future.
The Chief Executive Officer Aerospace Uganda, Captain Oxtone Lubega, revealed that the expo exposes the young generation to the aviation industry through career guidance, promotion, business and all other relevant aspects that they need.
“The onus is on us to teach the young generation, inspire them within the industry, but also we believe that these are the future travellers, if they get to know as early as possible the better”. He said.
Capt. Lubega said the expo helps inspire the students on the different areas where they can be passionate about in the sector and further reiterated, the need for discipline amongst students since the aviation industry is a teamwork effort.
“You need discipline to be able to work with people, to be able to cope up with the regulations, to meet the standards of the industry. So discipline is emphasised because it is the most important aspect for career growth in aviation, once you’re disciplined you can move forward at a faster rate”.
He further noted that the expo will in the future be rotated to different regions of the country, in order to instil the passion of aviation into students from an early age.
The St Julian Principal Mr Opata Nicholas Abel, urged students to not only be curious but also research and inquire about the different sectors of the aviation industry, which they can pursue, while maintaining discipline in their lives.
“The agenda is for us not only to produce the best leaders but also put Uganda on the global aviation map, as students, you must bear in mind that having that discipline as well as the industry is concerned with you…., you need to dream big and you need to work hard, either as a pilot, an aircraft engineer or anybody within that industry” he said.
The Kenya Airways Country Manager, Felix Mwangangi urged students to not only look at being aircraft captains or cabin crew member as the only employment opportunities in the aviation industry with Africa set to become the next frontier for aviation.
“The aviation industry needs people in IT, in commercial, human resources, because you’re living with people. It’s an organisation, it needs pilots, of course, cabin crew, engineers, the air traffic controllers, ground handling agents, security, the aviation industry is as wide as you can imagine”
Mr Mwangangi further urged students to embrace working alongside Artificial intelligence with the aviation sector set to become more technological, “We are going into robotics and artificial intelligence, we will be needing people who can make this happen”.
The expo also saw three lucky students win return air ticket trips to Kenya from Safari link and Kenya Airways.
