Higher flyer content with life

By LULU MAGINDE
RETIRED first officer Lydia Clancy, the first Papua New Guinean woman to fly for Virgin Australia, now entrepreneur, high ticket affiliate marketer and author, is content with life, taking nothing for granted.
Raised between oceans and families, she talks of having to battle societal cultural norms, disapproving family members and navigating her identity for the longest time until she learned to accept that her upbringing had moulded her to be different.
The first of seven children born to a father from Mendi and mother from Ialibu in Southern Highlands, she was adopted at age four by her father’s elder brother, former ambassador Dominick Diya and his family. She spent her formative years abroad as the child of a diplomat.
“God’s timing is perfect, things are all divinely planned, my uncle (daddy)ominic, told my parents that he would take their baby because they were still young and in school and because he was a diplomat with an established career,” said Clancy.
“When I was three or four, my mum said okay to letting me go and I reckon it really hurt her to do that but at the same time I can see now that she wanted a better life for me,” she adds.
She returned to Port Moresby when she was eight to go back to her parents in Mendi because her uncle’s term as ambassador had come to end.
Clancy remained in Southern Highlands for the next five years until she had the opportunity to go abroad again in 1988 with her uncle to the Philippines, but was only there for two years as the family had to return because of the political instability at the time.
“I remember sitting on the grass at Momei oval in Mendi town when I was younger, looked up, because the flight path is right over the town and was fascinated by this huge aircraft that flew over me and that’s when that spark happened,” she recalls.
She remembers staring in amazement as she watched two Papua New Guinean men step out of the Dash 7 airplane thinking, if people from her country could do it, she could do it too.
“Peter Yasi, who was my uncle through marriage, was one of the first Southern Highlands pilots and the base manager pilot in Mendi for Milne Bay Air (now Airlines PNG). I was really impressed by that so I would ask if I could go on flights with him,” she said.
In 1993, she received an Australian Aid scholarship to complete high school at Sogeri National High School and in 1995 she was accepted to study aviation in Brisbane on scholarship, choosing to defer a scholarship to study medicine at the University of PNG.
“That seed to be successful and be something had already been planted in me from my time abroad but I was also inspired by highly educated family members who were already living abroad, which drove me to want better for myself,” said Clancy.
Her first job upon her return from Australia with her commercial pilot license was with a company in Mendi called Southwest Air in 1997 for two years.
“When I went back to Mendi, I was labelled all kinds of names. I had disapproving family members and relatives who came asking or rather demanding things of me, which I accepted given it is the culture to do so,” said Clancy.
“While I was with Southwest Air, I applied for another scholarship to study aviation, because the license that I had wasn’t going to take me to fly in cloud (big aeroplanes), so that encouraged me to get another scholarship,” she said.
She went to Adelaide in 1999, graduating in two years with an advanced diploma in aviation and an Air Transport Pilot License. In 2001 she landed a job with Airlines PNG, moving to Australia in 2005 through the airlines as a pilot transporting Porgera mine workers.
Clancy returned to Port Moresby in 2008, to train to become captain but following a series of unfortunate events things did not go the way she planned. She made peace with what happened and in 2013 she was offered a first officer position with Virgin Australia.
She came back to work for PNG Air in 2016 when they were looking for pilots after buying their new fleet of the ATR72 aircraft and needed endorsed pilots, crediting her dislike for cold weather as the reason for her return. She was let go in 2020 by the company because of the cronavirus.
“Through being an entrepreneur, I want to empower and educate women on online marketing to be their own boss and create their own high income transferable skills,” said Clancy.
“Failures are stepping stones and building blocks you use to reach you goals. It’s not about how many times you fail but how you get up, learn from it and never make the same mistakes again”, says Clancy.

From flying to writing
Be Happier by Tomorrow – The Ultimate Guide on How to Be Happier in 24 Hours is Lydia Clancy’s first self-help book written after two decades of being an airline pilot.
Her own experiences, knowledge, skills and mindset shifts she has acquired during her remarkable journey of identity, culture, belief shifting and going against all odds to achieving her goals, is packed here in this beautifully crafted book.
Going through her fair share of struggles, facing criticism, suppression, and disapprovals, she has compressed her learnings, methods of diagnosing and identifying what’s critical to take on board and what’s toxic and needs eliminating in your life, into this book.
If you’re unhappy and stuck in the rut and don’t know how to get out or who to turn to, then this book is for you! It’s packed with simple clear steps on how to be Happier in 24 hours.
Written in simple comprehendible English, it can be used as an educational material for any organisation to help teach about self-development to their audience. Be Happier By Tomorrow will show you step-by-step how to change your mindset, become happier in just 24 hours, and achieve the happy life you’ve always wanted.
You will start discovering secrets and powers that you never knew you had tucked away within.

The book is on pre order on Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09P2QMRSX
The book will be ready to be shipped out on Jan 1, 2022! So start 2022 on happy note! Don’t forget to get your copy!