While members of the public admire the air defence capability at our disposal, it needs to be confirmed that the SA Air Force is host to some of the best pilots, and air traffic and support personnel in the world. But, to keep ahead, we need to be able to retain these scarce skills. Retention strategies are starting to pay off, after we experienced some losses regarding these sought-after scare skills. We need to confirm that we are committed to retaining our personnel whom we have trained, and are more than willing to go the extra mile to ensure that operational readiness on this front is not compromised. This programme, however, is also one where we need to ensure that there is a more optimal balance between operations expenditure and the compensation of employees, as the ratio of 72,57% for the compensation of employees is beyond accepted norms. The department is therefore advised to re-examine this and address it accordingly.