Seneca College - RED 2017 - 28

Aviation grad on top
of the world
Karl Chang

NO CORNER OFFICE HAS A BETTER VIEW than the cockpit of
Karl Chang's airplane.
"I have a 180-degree view from my office and
it changes constantly with clouds, scenery and mountains," says the Aviation grad and Sunwing Airlines
Captain. "That's the best part about flying. It never
gets old."
After first graduating from York University with a
Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology, Karl took a fulltime job with York. A year later, though, he realized
he wanted more.
"At the end of the day, I was stuck in an office,"
he recalls. "I thought, was that what I wanted?"
Quitting his job, Karl found his way to Seneca's
Aviation and Flight Technology program (now Honours
Bachelor of Aviation Technology). While at Seneca,
Karl was president of the Canadian Aeronautics and
Space Institute student club. He graduated valedictorian
of his class in 2004.
Karl's academic success aside, it was a chance
meeting at Seneca's former Buttonville Campus that
launched his career as a pilot. During his first year,

Karl was asked to give an airline president from
China a tour of the hangar-in Mandarin.
"I was nervous, I wasn't even supposed to be there
that day," says Karl, who was born in Canada and
spoke conversational Mandarin. "Then he asked what
I wanted to do when I finished the program. I said,
'I want to go to China and work for you.'"
Karl kept in touch with the executive over the
next two years. Upon graduation, and without formal
arrangements, he spent $1,800 for a flight to Beijing,
where the two met on a Sunday. An hour later,
Karl was offered a job to fly a Boeing 737 with Okay
Airways, China's first private airline. At the time, he
was among a handful of foreign-trained pilots ever
hired to fly in China.
"I was like, 'Where can I sign?' It was what I was
looking for," Karl says. "If it weren't for this connection,
which happened at Seneca, I'd have headed north.
A lot of my classmates had to do that to put in the flight
time required before a pilot can apply to major airliners."
Karl spent five years in China, returning to Toronto
in 2009, becoming a first officer and then captain with
Porter Airlines. Since 2013, he has been with Sunwing,
where he's also an instructor for the Flight Operations
Department, training new recruits. Through Sunwing's
European deployment program, he has worked out of
bases in Dublin, Belfast, Warsaw and Norwich.
"Seneca provided the building blocks of my career,"
Karl says. "I had great mentors and instructors,
who helped push me in the direction to become a
commercial pilot."

A chance meeting
at Seneca opened
doors to international
flying opportunities
for Karl Chang.

PHOTO: JOANNE KLIMASZEWSKI

2000s

I had great
mentors and
instructors who
helped push me.

28 RED

2017



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