Deal Alliance opened its first day of South Africa’s first and only, full-time Commercial Ground School, in a large lecture room in Fish Hoek Senior High School, to a dedicated group of six private pilots. Dedicated because for nine weeks, five days a week, half of these first Deal Alliance students travelled from the Durbanville Hills 50 km away, to the Fish Hoek Valley to attend 6 hours of lectures covering all eight commercial pilots examination subjects. Today, two of these “students” are flying for our National Airlines and are soon to be considered for command, whilst two of them have held roles as Chief Flight Instructors at principle Flight Training Schools in the country.

Deal Alliance obtained accreditation with the South African Civil Aviation Authority as a full time Ground School. We proudly display our ATO number: CAA 0325

The World Airnews wrote an article on Deborah Mann, the present owner and CEO of the Organization. The article is reproduced here and serves best to give the reader the real history behind not only the origins of the Training Organization, but the rather unusual name as well.

Deal Alliance, obtained through a UK-based British Civil Aviation Authority accredited company, the facilitator certification to offer CREW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INITIAL AND RECURRENT TRAINING (CRM). We consider ourselves privileged to have maintained our association with our UK CAA examiner, Ms Sarah Skelton of Plane Training, UK, who has been instrumental in supporting Deal Alliance with advice and constant contact over the years.

We were the first and only training facility to offer Crew Resource Management courses to operators in the Western Cape area.

Deal Alliance was on the first Aviation English Proficiency Rater’s ICAO Trainair Raters’ course delivered by ATNS and was the first Language Test Center in Cape Town and one of the first in South Africa.

Deal Alliance was, once again, first to obtain SA CAA accreditation for the Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) course that was developed with the assistance of ATNS in Johannesburg. We presented the first course to a small group of pilots in September 2008, in the same month that RVSM became operational in South Africa.

Deal Alliance opened a dedicated training facility at Cape Town International Airport, from which to deliver our high standard training and language testing.

Deal Alliance was granted approval for the Generic Safety and Procedures Course for operations without cabin crew (SEPT). We were first to be able to deliver this service to our aeroplane and helicopter pilots in the Western Cape area.

Deal Alliance developed and is approved to present theory section of the the Global Navigation Satellite System and Performance Based Navigation (GNSS/PBN) course to the General Aviation industry.

Deal Alliance gained SA CAA certification for the 5 day Safety Management Systems (SMS) course.