Granted only 10 days of vacation leave, a pilot with Australian flag carrier Qantas nevertheless made the most of it in Virac where her mother was born and raised.
In her brief vacation that coincided with the celebration of the fiesta in barangay Palta Small, Shelley Sarmiento Groves relished the joy that comes with reuniting with members of the extended Sarmiento and Valeza families.
The 37-year-old female First Officer, who helps fly a Boeing B737 for the airline, was born in Melbourne, Australia on Valentines Day 1989 to Bruce Groves and Norma Sarmiento.
When her husband passed away when their baby was just four years old, it was Norma who raised her on her own.
While she couldn’t remember the brief time she was with her Dad, Shelley recalled growing up with only her mother as her companion: “I saw my Mum working very hard and making lots of sacrifices so she could send me to school and I could do extra-curricular activities whilst also still being able to help the family back in Catanduanes when she could. That inspired me to want to do well in school and not take anything for granted.”
While she was in high school at Melbourne Girls’ College, Shelley’s interest in aviation was piqued when she took an elective in Australian Air Force Cadets one Thursday afternoon.
“I applied for a flying scholarship in 2003 through Cadets and that’s where my love for flying began,” she told the Tribune of her experience with the program that ended in 2006.
“During my school holidays I would participate in flying camps and cadet promotion training,” she said.
The following year, she went to Swinburne University of Technology for her flying training and eventually obtained her commercial pilot’s license and flight instructor rating in 2010.
In 2011, Shelley got her first job in the aviation industry as a flying instructor with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) where she taught students how to fly a plane.
Her first airline stint came two years later in 2013 with Qantaslink, completing the training program as the “Dux” or top performing student.
Flying the Dash 8 Q400 turboprop that seats a maximum of 90 passengers needed her to move to Cairns, Queensland in the northeastern part of the country where she stayed for five years.
In 2018, the then 29-year-old aviator earned her first job flying a jet – the Airbus A320 – with Jetstar, an Australian low-cost airline similar to Cebu Pacific Airways of the Philippines.
The assignment proved fortunate as it allowed her to move back to Melbourne to be with her mother.
However, the COVID pandemic hit Australia in 2020, with Shelley stood down from her job for majority of the year and part of 2021.
In January 2023, she left the airline and by February started her dream job at Australia’s national carrier Qantas.
“This is the airline I have wanted to work for since I was 14 years old,” she recalled, sharing that she started as a Second Officer on the Airbus A330, the wide-body airliner with more than 200 seats.
“My first trip after training was to Manila where I was reunited with my family after not seeing them for a long time,” Shelley stated.
She enjoyed this role for just over 12 months, transferring to the 160-seater Boeing 737 where she is currently a First Officer in its international flights until today.
Asked if she ever had a scary flight in her career as a pilot, she said she has been very lucky although she admits to some unusual things that happened during a few flights.
“Our training is done to a very high standard so if something were to occur, I know that as a crew we would be prepared for that,” she stressed.
“Honestly, just being able to fly for a living, I feel very fortunate that it’s my “9 to 5” job. I get to fly with people from all walks of life every day which makes the job very enjoyable,” Shelley adds.
She finds life in Catanduanes, where she often returned with her mother during her younger years, very different from that of Australia.
“Life in Catanduanes for me seems much more relaxed. It’s having so many family members close by and the support when you need it. There is always someone to talk too and have a laugh with, whereas in Melbourne I find life gets very busy and sometimes lonely. What I miss the most when I leave Catanduanes is being able to hang out with my family,” she said.
Still single but in a meaningful relationship, the Filipino-Australian confessed that she definitely prioritized her career in her 20’s and early 30’s: “I had goals that I wanted to achieve. But now that I am where I want to be in my career, hopefully I will be lucky enough to have a family sometime in the near future.”