For more than three decades, the Singh family has shared a journey that has taken them from humble beginnings and personal sacrifice to the skies with Fiji\u2019s national airline.<\/p>\n
What began with two people finding their way into aviation has grown into a two-generation family story shaped by hard work, sacrifice, family support and a shared love for flying.<\/p>\n
Together, Sharmila and Satpreet Singh and their two sons, Prashant and Satvikrant, have accumulated close to 90 years of aviation experience across Fiji Air, Air Pacific and Fiji Airways.<\/p>\n
For Sharmila, the journey began when she was working at an accounting firm and noticed cabin crew members visiting the office.<\/p>\n
She had hoped to become a teacher, but watching the crew come and go sparked her curiosity about aviation and eventually led her towards a career with the airline.<\/p>\n
In February 1992, she put on the Air Pacific uniform for the first time as cabin crew and is now a Purser.<\/p>\n
Sharmila says wearing the uniform for the first time made her feel proud, nervous, and excited.<\/p>\n
As Sharmila and her husband built their careers, their growing family became accustomed to the rhythm of airline life, rosters, early starts, travel and periods of time apart.<\/p>\n
For Sharmila, seeing her sons eventually step into the same industry became one of the most meaningful moments of her journey.<\/p>\n
She says seeing her sons in uniform is one of the proudest moments of her life. <\/p>\n
She says it is more than seeing them dressed as pilots, it is seeing their dreams, hard work, and dedication come to life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her husband, Satpreet, the fascination with aviation began when he was a boy growing up in Wailailai, Ba.<\/p>\n
Satpreet shares that any time an aircraft was in the sky, he would automatically look up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says his parents were teachers at Khalsa College, where the family lived in the teachers\u2019 quarters among the sugarcane fields.<\/p>\n
His father and mother had migrated from Punjab, India, to Fiji in the late 1950s and went on to become an important part of the Khalsa College community.<\/p>\n
That fascination with aircraft eventually became a dream of becoming a pilot.<\/p>\n
His first flight came as a child on a holiday with his mother. <\/p>\n
It would be years before he boarded an aircraft again, and when he did, it was as a student pilot.<\/p>\n
When Satpreet told his family he wanted to fly, money was tight, but they found ways to support him.<\/p>\n
His father gave whatever savings he could, while his mother surrendered her life insurance policy and took out a loan.<\/p>\n
His sister also took out a loan to help fund his flying school, while his brother provided accommodation and logistical support in Kilbirnie, Wellington, New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Satpreet also worked at the flying school, cleaning and refuelling aircraft, as well as cleaning offices and lavatories.<\/p>\n
He also worked at a kitchen and bathroom showroom to help support himself.<\/p>\n
For Satpreet, every job was another step towards his dream.<\/p>\n
He joined Fiji Air in 1991, flying the DHC6 Twin Otter, BN2A Islander, Harbin Y-12 and Embraer EMB110 from Nausori before joining Air Pacific in 1999 as a Boeing 737 First Officer.<\/p>\n
He became a Captain in 2007 and continued his flying career through the evolution of the airline and its fleet.<\/p>\n
Thirty-five years into his commercial flying career, Satpreet has logged more than 23,000 flying hours, mostly in jets, and remains driven by the same passion.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, none of the Singh brothers was pressured to follow their parents into aviation.<\/p>\n
For Prashant, aviation had simply been part of life for as long as he could remember.<\/p>\n
Prashant says he grew up surrounded by aviation because of their parents and their colleagues, so there was always a curiosity and a natural pull towards it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says their mother encouraged them to choose their own paths.<\/p>\n
After completing his flying studies, Prashant joined Fiji Airways in 2015 as a Second Officer at the age of 19 and is now a First Officer.<\/p>\n
His brother, Satvikrant joined Fiji Airways in 2018 at the age of 20 and is now a First Officer.<\/p>\n
For both brothers, stepping into the flight deck was also a chance to experience something they had watched their parents do throughout their childhood.<\/p>\n
Prashant remembers visiting his father in the cockpit as a child and asking about the aircraft\u2019s switches and instruments.<\/p>\n
The brothers say it feels like a dream, only this time, the dream has become a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is still one milestone they hope to achieve.<\/p>\n
The four have yet to be on the same aircraft together as operating crew, which would be a significant milestone for the family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than three decades, the Singh family has shared a journey that has taken them from humble…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,301994,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-613048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-feature-fiji-airways-video","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}