OUR community

Each June we were delighted to host a visit by 20 or so students and teachers from Yirara College to our facility in Alice Springs.

This annual visit by year 9 students as part of their study into a book called “Hatchett” (a story about a 13-year-old boy who is onboard a light aircraft that crashes in the Canadian wilderness).

For the students, the visit gives them an opportunity to see firsthand the type of aircraft they have read about and hopefully strengthen their understanding of the story. For Chartair, with this behind-the-scenes look at our operation, we hope to sow the seed of interest in the aviation industry as a potential career path for them when they complete their school studies. 

Photo supplied by Yirara College Alice Springs

In early November 2021, ABC News Darwin shared a beautiful story about the Mums On Bikes group and its goal to provide bikes, including buggies, to Mums with young children on Galiwin’ku - the largest community on Elcho Island, 550 km north-east of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

The initial idea of this project is to support mums with young children to easily get around with a means of environmentally friendly transport. And it’s great for health benefits and is fun for the kids to ride on the buggies.

The group had 40 bikes and trailers donated and was looking for donations to help get them to Elcho.

Chartair came across this post and reached out to the organiser of the group Belinda Morton and offered our assistance in transporting a few items at no cost. 

In less than a week, Chartair organised 2 flights to Elcho to deliver items for the group. The mums and kids were so excited to receive the bikes and buggies early so that more children could enjoy the experience of riding with their mums.

It’s great we can give a helping hand to our community!

 Read more on ABC News

Wheelchairs are an absolute necessity in health centres throughout the NT. However, Aboriginal communities are often not well set up for wheelchair access, making it even harder for users to get around. The Aboriginal Investment Group Board established The Mobility Project to source more robust wheelchairs that can perform in rougher conditions. 

So far, AIG has distributed more than 100 wheelchairs throughout the Top End and recently Chartair helped them deliver chairs to Groote Eylandt, Bulman and Borroloola. 

NRL superstar and two-time Dally M Medallist, Cliff Lyons (pictured) is a huge supporter of AIG and their various projects including The Mobility Project and Remote Laundries; all part of the 30+ year mandate of AIG to build stronger Indigenous communities.

Students from the DMS2 class created a business called “Henbury Healthy Chefs”, cooking meals for staff once a week at a ridiculously low price of $6.50 per meal. 

At the end of the year, the students donated half their profits to provide equipment for a remote school in Wadeye, Port Keats. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Thamarrurr Catholic College, was the lucky recipient of a wonderful selection of stationery, board games and sporting goods.

Located some 400Km south west of Darwin, Chartair were delighted to support the school by flying the donated goods to Wadeye. 

All organisations, big and small, must do more to support the communities that support them. At Chartair, we are proud to play our part.

Women in Aviation/Aerospace Australia (WA/AA) is an initiative to promote the issue of gender diversity and the participation of women within the aviation and aerospace sector in Australia and a network for women to connect with industry peers, inspire future generations to join the industry, and excel in their chosen careers.

At Chartair we are proud of our efforts to upturn the gender imbalance in the industry! Currently, we have five very talented females flying for us - representing almost 16% of our line pilots. This compares with 3% industry-wide, just over 6% with Qantas and about 5.5% for Virgin Australia (pre-COVID data). 

At Chartair, our aspirations aren’t simply focused on pilots, we are actively developing opportunities for female engineers too. We have a female CEO, putting us in a very small group of the industry engaging a female at the top of the organisation. Also, four of our nine managers in the Senior Management team are female – almost 50%.