Thirty-three staff of Air Rep Services (ARS) and Gambia International Airline (GIA) were Thursday certified after successfully concluding an intensive training on flight safety, customer services and ramp safety and security, at the Senegambia Beach Hotel. The training was facilitated by Tui-Arke, a Hollander Airline, the second biggest Airline in Europe.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Father Francis Mendy,operations and compliances manager for Air RepServices, stated that Arke Fly has been flying to The Gambia for the past six years and since then they started working with ARS, it has always been very good for ARS staff.

According to him, Arke Fly has lot of frequencies during the Tourist season, Arke flows sixty four flights to The Gambia between November and April adding that they transported twelve thousand passengers to the country. He disclosed that Arke continues to operate weekly flights in the summer as well so they are not only operating in tourist season alone but a yearly thing for them.

"This is not the first time we are doing such in the country. The results have indicated the participant's capability and understanding in whatever we did during the training," he said. He commended Arke for the trainingand urged the participants to share the knowledge gained with those who were not privileged to take part. He finally thanked Musa K. Musa, the managing director of Air Rep Service for having a vision to create such a company.

Arno Van Dijik, the outstation manager of Arke Fly said the training is important to learn everybody about the safety in aviation especially the Arke fly producers. He said all the participants scored more than seventy percent in the examination.

Van Dijik further stated that the participants know the basic producer of the Arke Fly process adding that it will create uniformity in their business. "I conducted the training last year though the content of this year is little bit different as this time, we conducted examination" he said. He noted that areas covered included ramp activities; ramp handling, ramp safety, operations, passenger services and Arke fly procedures.

Famara Gassama, passenger handling agent said the training is important for themas to better handle Arke fly adding that they have been handling different airline carries that have been coming to The Gambia especially the tourist flights. Gassama thanked the Gambia Civil Aviation Agency for providing the conducive environment. Alhajie Baidy Touray, the deputy managing director of GIA, commended the Arke fly for the laudable gesture.