Meet Adzim Azlan, a Malaysian airline pilot and amongst the youngest talents to be awarded a Captaincy at the age of 24 and Instructor's license at the age of 25. He also happens to be my husband (proud wife over here!), which is why I was a tad overexcited when it occurred to me that not many people know the inside scoop of the aviation world and I had the perfect person to give us a tell-all.
If you're over 18 years old and reading this article, I'm pretty sure you've been in an airplane before. Whether you've flown in an Airbus A380 or in a Viking DHC6-400, as long as the vehicle you entered has wings and travels in the sky, it counts as an airplane.
One of the more common assumptions that annoys pilots is the fact that passengers assume pilots who fly small planes are less capable, whereas the opposite is closer to the truth! Smaller planes have less of the fancy gizmos that big planes use to assist us mere human beings, so the pilots need to be MORE capable to fly them efficiently.
When asked what was his earliest notable memory in relation to the aviation world, Adzim shared a story about his first time on an airplane when he was a child.
With the innocence and wonder that all of us possess at that age, something struck deep within Adzim and he was determined to find out what life in the cockpit would be like. 13 years after that incident, he achieved that goal through hard work and dedication that allowed him to score a job with MASwings when he was only 20 years old.
Not everyone can say that they truly love the first line of work they landed after completing studies, yet this is exactly the case for Adzim. Many people change their minds about the path they take while they are still in University, and this is even more evident in the working world.
Adzim went to Asia Pacific Flight Training immediately after graduating from high school, and landed a job as a commercial co-pilot a mere 4 months after graduating from the flight academy. Even now, he has dreams about flying an airplane if he has more than 5 days off in a row. That's real passion!
After 7 years of flying in Borneo, Adzim made the decision to move forward in his career by accepting an offer to become a Captain for Malindo Air's ATR 600 fleet, based in Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang. He foresees himself gradually moving on to bigger airplanes and hopes to one day work in either Australia or the United Kingdom.
What an inspiring tale of someone who was lucky enough to know his true calling from a very young age. Passion is often something that sneaks up on us, but for Adzim it was something that registered in him when he was only 7 years old.
Perhaps we can take his experience as a reminder that finding one's passion may not be as difficult as we think; it could be as simple as something we were wowed by as children.