Aviation industry must answer about pilots

RED ELEPHANT WRITES:

The Namibian of Friday, 11 February 2022 reports that the Namibian aviation industry and private aviation companies such as FlyNamibia, formerly known as Westair, currently experience licenced pilot shortages and is therefore forced to recruit abled pilots from abroad due to NSFAF bursary funding cuts.

However, Westair Aviation CEO, Henri van Schalkwyk, aviation industry experts, and Signa Aviation Services MD Francois Hugo, who claim the above, fail to inform the Namibian public on the whole truth of the manner of recruiting pilots in Namibia as alleged by interviewed former employees of FlyNamibia.

They allege that FlyNamibia retrenched about eighty of its workers in 2021 of which about thirty were pilots as a measure to save the company from the negative outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many, if not all of these retrenched pilots are jobless at home, according to the former workers.

The disappointed former employees further allege that many of Air Namibia's former pilots were forced to pack their bags to go and work abroad in especially African countries since opportunities for employment were denied them by local private aviation companies.

It also comes to light that the aviation industry in Namibia is a white male dominated sector because of which non-white Namibian pilots are discriminated against and sidestepped when it comes to employment opportunities, the former workers allege. The end result is thus that FlyNamibia tends to want to recruit white pilots from neighbouring South Africa mainly and where they do so for non-white Namibians, their salaries are substandard thereby discouraging them from applying for positions, they further allege.

In the meantime, one can't but wonder how FlyNamibia opportunistically capitalised on the tragic redundancy of Air Namibia (for which Namibians refuse to forgive cabinet for this alleged ill-thought decision) with regard to their new brand, especially in the light of Hugo's statement that he "thinks that the private institutions are stepping into the functions of the government".

These and possibly some other questions, were the ones The Namibian should have asked and which Namibians deserve to get answered by FlyNamibia. Yet the main one lingers: Why does FlyNamibia not simply re-employ their former retrenched pilots rather than lament a shortage which does not exist? Is the reason the former pilots were retrenched based on incompetence, Covid-19-related or other factors?

Hugo further states that they "hope that private aviation companies like FlyNamibia will extend support to young Namibians in order to sustain the aviation industry." Van Schalkwyk adds that FlyNamibia has a bursary scheme they offer to future aviators. Why do they still experience a shortage of competent pilots and not make use of their own pilots who are at home then? Is this not a waste of their own resources?

There might be a significant problem in most neighbouring countries' aviation, however, Namibia's case is different in that scores of domestic pilots lie idle at home. Van Schalkwyk sees a long-term problem of shortage of pilots while there is a short-term solution right at their doorstep. What happened to national pride and patriotism? What of "Be Namibian. Buy Namibian"?