Aviation firms deny racism claims

CATHERINE SASMAN Small private aviation firms have taken great exception to an allegation that they refuse to employ black Namibian pilots.A certain John D, purporting to be a black Namibian pilot, has responded angrily to an article which questioned Air Namibia’s recruitment of pilots, which allegedly excludes experienced white male Namibian pilots.John D wrote in an email that he as a black pilot had been struggling to get into the flying industry in Namibia, which he said was dominated by white-owned businesses and pilots.He claimed that Westair, Bay Air, Scenic Air, Wilderness Air and Desert Air, along with others, employed at least 20 pilots each, and there were only three black pilots hired in the entire country.Moreover, John D claimed that most of the white pilots working at these companies were South Africans with no more than 400 hours’ flying experience.“I find it strange they want to complain of Air Namibia when in fact they are the ones feeding this hiring practice by not hiring the low-hour black pilots, leaving us jobless for months if not years,” John D said.Not so, said the private flying companies.The chief operations officer of Westair Aviation, Henri van Schalkwyk, said the company invited every Namibian with a pilot’s licence for interviews.In fact, he stressed, the company had run four advertisements for pilots last year. There were 14 applications from Namibian pilots, nine of whom were black.All nine black pilots were invited to interviews; two of them did not show up, three were unsuccessful, two were employed and another two declined an offer made to them.“Our recruitment process is definitely non-racial but we employ pilots who meet the requirements; we do not compromise on safety. Any pilot that did not get the job was not on standard,” said Van Schalkwyk.All applicants are put through a technical test and an interview with four panellists, which means that the selection process cannot be biased, stressed Van Schalkwyk.Safety standards at these airlines are stringent. At Westair the required minimum flying hours for a captain is 1 500 hours; for a co-pilot it is 500 hours.“The bottom line in aviation is that you employ the best candidate because statistics show that things can go wrong. When that happens, you need to have the right person to make right decisions at the right time to ensure that everyone survives,” said Van Schalkwyk.With safety as the operative word, Westair will never employ a pilot fresh out of flying school, said Van Schalkwyk. The company does have a cadet scheme which provides an opportunity to novices to progress from a five-seater single engine plane to jet aircraft.The company is also audited nine times a year by various authorities to ensure that it operates at the Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS), the highest aviation standard in the world. The foundation of the audits is flight safety.The financial manager and acting in the human resources department of Bay Air Aviation, Kay Seifert, said the company currently employed 11 people, including four pilots.He said the company recruited pilots based on their qualifications and experience and did not discriminate on the basis of skin colour, ethnic group or nationality.Scenic Air managing director Mike Böttger said the company employed black pilots in the past, would continue to do so, and would never discriminate on the basis of race, sex or creed.“In fact, how things work is that if there are Namibian pilots needing jobs, they are first in line,” said Böttger.He added that the Namibian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) kept a database of Namibian pilots looking for jobs and would only endorse a foreign pilot’s application for a work visa if there were no Namibians available.“The truth of the matter is that there are very few Namibian commercial pilots, which is why there are quite a number of foreign, mainly South African, pilots working in Namibia,” Böttger said.“There is no place for racism or politics in aviation because we are responsible for people’s lives,” said Raymond Waldeck, the head pilot of Desert Air.Desert Air managing director Thys Rall said the company was in fact the first one to have employed a black Namibian commercial pilot, Grant Gariseb, who was currently flying the presidential jet.Rall said as soon as black pilots were employed by private companies, they were snatched up by Air Namibia. Others preferred joining the Namibian air force.Rall added that the private aviation industry would prefer not to employ foreign pilots because of the difficulty in securing work permits, but there was a shortage of qualified Namibians.

Aviation firms deny racism claims

Comments

Namibian Sun 2026-06-10

Please login to leave a comment

Aviation firms deny racism claims

Comments

Namibian Sun 2026-06-10

Please login to leave a comment

Subscription Required to Access Content ×

Login

Subscription Required to Access Content