Qantas captain Cornay Sinac touched down in Sydney last Friday on what marked his final flight after 41 years of service.
The 66-year-old started with the airline at just 24 years of age back in 1984 after having learned to fly before he could even drive.
He was 16 when started taking flying lessons at Melbourne’s Moorabbin Airport and has gone on to clock around 23,000 flying hours since he started with the national carrier.
The well-respected captain has trained pilots across the Boeing 767, Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 fleets – and on Friday, he got the ultimate and most “unexpected” welcome.
“I’m extremely humbled by all the attention and a little bit embarrassed,” Mr Sinac told news.com.au.
When the A380 captain taxied into Gate 8 at Sydney’s International Airport following a flight from London on August 28, not only was he greeted by his peers, but his two sons who also happen to work for the airline – Joseph, 32, a First Officer and Noah, 30, an engineer.
“I didn’t think it would happen,” Mr Sinac said.
“We landed at about 5.04am and my youngest son, Noah, who’s a first year apprentice with Qantas engineering was waiting at the gate.
“I shut the engines down and the engineer traditionally plugs into the intercom down near the nose wheel outside of the plane and … my younger son says, ‘Hey Dad, welcome to Sydney’. It was just fabulous,” an emotional Mr Sinac said.
Meanwhile, Joseph was waiting at 5.10am to open the door to the aircraft to officially welcome home his father.
“Then Noah, Joseph and I, together with my wife who was a passenger on the plane, all got together to farewell the aeroplane,” Mr Sinac said.
His wife, Lorna travelled with him on his final trip. She’s a former Qantas cabin crew member. In a very rare and unique case, the entire family works or has worked for the airline.
Biggest highlight
When looking back at his time with the airline, Mr Sinac said the biggest highlight was meeting his wife who went onto become a flight attendant for the airline.
“She was in a bar called the Sherlock Holmes Pub in The Gulf Hotel Bahrain. I [obviously] had no idea she was going to be my wife,” he laughed.
“We were mates for two years and then romance developed, and after that she moved to Sydney and the rest of history – we’ve been together for 35 years.”
Lorna was cabin crew for Gulf Air before moving to Sydney where she worked as a nurse and eventually became cabin crew for Qantas.
Joseph and Noah unsurprisingly followed in their parents’ aviation footsteps with the whole family working for the airline.
“I wish nothing for them but what I have, which is a career where you go to work and it’s not really going to work, you’re doing what you love,” Mr Sinac said.
“I said to them, try to hunt for what you love and then try to get employed to do it.
“Joseph is a pilot with Qantas freight, he’s doing what he loves, he’s obsessed and Noah left his career at Sydney University working in the network department and he’s now in engineering, fixing all the things that Joe and I manage to break.”
Mr Sinac said – apart from the trip he met his wife – he’s had many unforgettable moments working for the airline, noting all wonderful staff, cabin crew and mentors who’ve helped shape his career.
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“It’s exciting but it’s sad because I won’t see these people again.”
To this day he vividly remembers his first flight.
“It was from Sydney to Melbourne to Singapore, to Bangkok, to Athens to Rome and then all the way back again. It was just unbelievable,” he said.
Other highlights include all the incredible experiences he’s had travelling to different parts of the world and the “mind-blowing” things he gets to see out of the cockpit window.
“The other night I was flying back over the Pacific and I just took my iPhone out, stuck it on the window and took a photograph,” he explained.
“There in the photo was the Milky Way … it was incredible. You sit there and just think ‘that’s mind-blowing’ – and we get to see this stuff all the time.”
Mr Sinac has now officially retired from Qantas as international pilots can’t exceed flying past the age of 65.
“I have to make a seat for someone else internationally to come from underneath me in terms of seniority and do what I’ve been able to do.”
“It’s the career of a lifetime.”