If girls were meant to fly, God would have painted the skies pink.”
These were the first words Chipo Matimba heard from a male colleague when she reached for the skies 22 years ago.
How the first female Airforce of Zimbabwe pilot soared 30,000 feet above her humble home in Harare’s Belvedere suburbs is one of the great stories of Africa.
“I saw an advert in a local newspaper advertising for cadet programs for the air force in Zimbabwe, when I realized there were no gender restrictions, I decided to apply. My mind was clear growing up that I wanted to do something that required science and having done science subjects at high school helped me enrol as a cadet pilot,” says Matimba.
Matimba was born a few years after Ian Smith, former Rhodesian prime minister, signed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 – a move that thrust many black Rhodesians into the dark.
“There are some professions that were out of reach for black Zimbabweans, let alone women. The promises of independence meant we could all pursue our dreams,” she says.
“My father died when I was 10, this left the burden of raising nine children to my mother who was a dressmaker. Other than looking after her children, she had the extended family to care for also.”
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The fact that Matimba, the sixth of nine children, opted for the military was a mystery to her family.
“After that advert, I went to join the military at the air force department in Gweru. Of the hundreds who applied, I was one of 10 selected for the program; three females and seven males. It was not an easy exercise, both for the training itself, and pressure from family that said I would not make it in the military.
“My grandmother was adamant that I was not supposed to be in this profession but after some persuasion my mother agreed that I give it a try. [At the end of] the training, the two other females had fallen by the wayside but all the males completed.”
Matimba knew she had made the right choice.
“It costs about $50,000 to go through training lessons with 200 flying hours to fly commercial. Without air force training, I would not have flown any single day as mother would not have even managed to raise money for one lesson,” she says.
In 1996, two years after she joined the military, she received her flying credits and got a few scares along the way.
“In 2005, I was flying with a trainee cadet and our one-engine plane had an engine failure so we had to crashland just outside Gweru. We were lucky that there were no trees, but only anthills; our small aircraft was damaged but our lives were not.”
These days, Matimba, 43, is a captain with full honors and flies an Airbus A320 across the region and on each trip, is entrusted with 160 lives.
For Matimba, success has not robbed her of her culture. She has one desire late in life – to start a family.
“The moment you are three months pregnant, you have to take time off flying and focus on your pregnancy. This is done for health reasons both for the mother and child. Unlike male counterparts, women pilots and even flight attendants have to deal with challenges posed by nature,” she says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-31863 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="680" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-600x398.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-768x510.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
She laughs that if she decided to stay single, her family would take her to charismatic preachers, who see celibacy as a demonic possession to be delivered from.
In the air, she is the boss.
“In most cases when passengers are told that they are flown by a female captain, they come to shake my hand and introduce their daughters to me. More than a pilot, I now see myself as an inspiration to most females and young males. I want them to look at me and say, ‘if she did it, why can I not do it’.”
She makes one last quip as we end our conversation, full of laughter and reflection.
“Every time I am flying, like what my former colleague once warned, I will be painting the sky pink.”

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In The Air, She Is Boss

When in August, Captain Irene Koki Mutungi, a pilot with Kenya’s national carrier Kenya Airways, flew into Nairobi the airline’s fourth Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Boeing’s assembly site in South Carolina, United States, it did not make much news.
The fact that she is Africa’s first black female Boeing 787 Dreamliner certified Captain did not make headlines either. The story was the plane.
Mutungi was raised in what she describes an aviator’s home. Her father was a pilot with Kenya Airways.
“My most memorable moment was when I flew with him on a flight he was commanding to London. I was about five years old. From that day, I promised myself I would one day become a Captain,” she reminisces.
She says she’s fortunate to be born into a family where excellence and integrity were all-important. She has become more conscious of the real world and is motivated by the fact that women, especially African women, can excel in everything. Has she ever encountered discrimination as a woman?
“Unfortunately, such is life. Anytime it has happened it has increased my resolve to keep aiming high. In my early years in aviation, a passenger disembarked because he said he wasn’t a guinea pig. That can tell you what I’ve been through sometimes.”
In many parts of the world and especially Africa, it’s still a man’s world. The stereotype of the working woman is rarely attractive with popular culture portraying successful women as consumed by their careers.
“As for stereotypes, this one too is far from reality. There are countless women successful in their careers and dedicated to their families and communities at large.”
Mutungi cites Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Malawi President Joyce Banda and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Africa Union Chairperson.
“Just like those African leaders and other women who are anchors of their households and communities, I too am a dedicated person who always strives towards excellence while remaining committed to what matters. I do that by being a model mother, model daughter and a role model to my African sisters.”
Mutungi describes her journey to the top in a male-dominated industry as one filled with commitment, sacrifice and support from friends and family.
Fear is at the root of so many barriers women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fair of failure. How does Mutungi handle fear?
“I don’t know what fear means. Yes, sometimes I may ask myself questions, but every situation is handled in a way that leaves me in control.”
She says she rarely has sleepless nights. “If I stay awake at night, it’s not usually anything of concern. I think of how great an aircraft the B787 Dreamliner is. Boeing has delivered a masterpiece.”
Mutungi wants to be remembered as an African mother who tried her best to change the narrative of the African continent.

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Flying The Dream

In 1934, Helen Richey was the first female to pilot a commercial airline in the United States. A little less than 80 years later, in South Africa, three female pilots embarked on the first long-range flight with an all-female flight deck crew for South African Airways (SAA).
“I’ve been a captain on the long range for seven years and I’ve never had two ladies on the flight deck with me. These things happened by accident, it was a coincidence,” says Captain Jane Trembath, who flew with Senior First Officers Taryn Hochstrasser and Jocindy Mars.
It’s also about the numbers – there are far more male than female pilots, hence the likelihood of having a male co-pilot is greater. Of the 130,000 airline pilots worldwide, 4,000 are female, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots; around 70 of SAA’s 780 pilots are female.
“At 9%, we are still higher than the international average, and [Mars’ cadet program] were at 25%, which is even higher. It’s been through the cadet program that we’ve increased our percentage of women. SAA’s aim was 50-50, but I don’t think that’s ever happened. There were some intakes where only women survived, and women have a higher passing rate,” says Trembath.
SAA has offered a cadet training program since 1994, and it is highly selective including extensive medical and psychometric testing.
“The cadet program only takes a selected number of people, not everybody gets in, you have to be chosen, you have to be good enough, like these two,” she says, pointing at Hochstrasser and Mars.
“It’s difficult to get into the cadet program, I was told they’d received 8,000 applicants. They only chose 16 from those and the selection process took a year,” says Mars.
“We did psychometric testing, if you passed that, you went for a medical and a personality test, and then there is a final interview before you get chosen,” says Hochstrasser.
“You never know exactly what they’re looking for. The most important thing is the actual desire, because it’s a hard road for men as well as women, if you don’t have that desire then you won’t have the tenacity to stick it out. That’s probably what they’re looking for: do you really, really want it,” says Trembath.
Trembath’s non-conformist parents loaned her money to attend a flying school, where she completed her private and commercial pilot’s license. In the early 1980s, it cost around R15,000 to qualify. Today, it costs a minimum of R350,000 ($33,000), and flight training costs around R1,300 ($122) an hour. Due to the cost, some qualify through the air force, many subsequently move into commercial aviation to clock more flying hours.
After earning her wings, it was time to fly, but no one wanted a female pilot, and an inexperienced one at that.
“You always think each step of your commercial license is the most difficult: exams are difficult, getting the hours is difficult, writing your final flight tests is difficult, but it’s not. The most difficult part was getting a job as a woman back in
the 1980s.
“I got turned down for a couple of jobs because I was a woman and I was told that to my face. It took a lot of persistence and I had to hang in there,” says Trembath.
There aren’t many opportunities to gain experience, but newly-qualified South African pilots are hired by South African companies to fly their airplanes throughout Africa.
Trembath became a pioneer in South African aviation: “SAA didn’t have any women pilots before 1988. They accepted me along with two other women [Brenda Howett and Jennifer Burger], that was a whole new thing for the industry.”
In 1993, she was also the first South African female pilot who qualified to fly a Boeing 747-400. During her 32-year career, she is proud to have had many firsts and to have witnessed change.
“Today, as a woman, it’s a lot easier to find a job. In small companies, women are judged on their merits and no one is turned down because they’re a woman,” says Trembath.
There may be more female pilots today, but they still experience prejudice. Between the three of them, they recount stories of hesitant parents, unsupportive guidance counselors and mocking friends. Similarly, passengers do double takes when they see a female pilot, elderly men openly pray during a flight, and passengers pass snide remarks about empty kitchens.
“Two students came to the flight deck to say hello. He was from Netherlands and she was from Finland. She asked, ‘Are you the pilot?’ I said, ‘Yes, didn’t you hear the PA announcements?’ She said, ‘no, so you actually fly the airplane? Females can be pilots?’ It was strange because she comes from a first-world country and yet still has the same perceptions as everybody else,” says Hochstrasser.
They have learnt not to try change people’s minds, but to deal prejudice with humor and through empowering communication.
“Whatever you’re doing, you have to have a passion for it, because it won’t always be easy. Provided that you enjoy it and you’re doing it because you really, really want to do it, don’t do it for anyone else,” says Mars.
Truer words were never said.

Women Power At 30,000ft

What drew you to the aviation industry?
I decided to become a pilot when I was four years old. I would see the big noisy bird take off and land at Bujumbura International Airport. I was fortunate enough to fly on the big bird, when I was seven years old, on a family trip to the United States. It was my first flight on a commercial airplane and I loved it.
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Where did you study?
I started my training at Soroti Flying School, also known as East Africa Civil Aviation Academy, in Uganda. I then got a scholarship with RwandAir to continue my commercial license training at Vero Beach Florida, US, at Flight Safety Academy.
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How many people graduated from your flight school and how many of them were women?
At Soroti Flying School, two women had graduated before me that I know of. At Flight Safety Academy, the number was bigger. There were up to 20 female students from all over the world, including the first female pilot from Saudi Arabia, Hanadi Zakaria al-Hindi. There were about 10 female instructors and the chief pilot, Nancy Ritter, was also female. But as many as we were, we did not even make up five percent of the academy.
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How did you feel when you became the first female pilot in Rwanda?
Making history is not my goal, achieving my goals is what I delight in. After getting my commercial license I did not celebrate, I was looking forward to the next cockpit I would get into.
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Your father passed away in a plane crash when you were eight. Did that affect your decision in any way?
No, it did not keep me from my dream. We do not stop driving because loved ones die in car crashes, why stop now? However, it made me realize the value of lives I have on board, so safety is definitely a big deal to me as a pilot.
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Why do you think there are so few women pilots in the world?
Aviation is perceived to be a male career. As the first female pilot in Rwanda, I feel proud to have paved the way for all young dreamers, male or female, to achieve their dreams.
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What challenges have you faced? Do you feel you always have to prove yourself as a woman?
I like to view my challenges as the reasons to celebrate having reached my goal. As a woman in a male-dominated field, there is no doubt that you have to prove yourself, but hard work always pays off.
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What is your power principle?
Do what you love to do and people will appreciate it.

Feel  The Fear And Fly Anyway

Esther Mbabazi was eight when her father died in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This could have deterred her childhood dream of being a pilot. It didn’t and Mbabazi found comfort in the skies.
“We don’t stop driving because loved ones die in car crashes, why stop now? However it just made me realize the value of lives I have on board, so safety is definitely a big deal to me as a pilot.”
Safety is important in most passengers’ minds when turbulence hits. Usually there is a reassuring announcement made by a mature male. Many passengers are surprised when they hear a female voice saying:  “Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking. We are experiencing a bit of turbulence on our descent. Just sit back we’ll be landing shortly.”
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In 2013, Mbabazi became Rwanda’s first female commercial pilot. It was a dream that began at the age of four where she would see planes take off from Bujumbura airport, close to her home in Burundi. At the age of seven, she took her first flight on a family trip to the Unites States (US). It was love at first flight.
“I didn’t get to go into the cockpit but I knew this is where I belonged, back then they’d give kids back packs and I was just an excited child on the Virgin Atlantic.”
After high school, Mbabazi started training at Soroti Flight School, also known as East Africa Civil Aviation Academy, in Uganda where only two women made it through. She secured a scholarship from RwandAir to continue her commercial license training in the US.
“At Flight Safety Academy in the US, the number [of female students] was bigger. There were up to 20 female students from all over the world including the first female Saudi Arabian pilot, Hanadi Hindi among others from Asia, Europe and South America. There were about 10 female instructors and the chief pilot, Nancy Ritter, was a female too. But as many as we were we didn’t even make up 5 percent of the academy.”
Two and a half years later, Mbabazi made it.
“Making history was not my goal, achieving my goals is what I delight in, like I said, do what you love and people may appreciate it. After getting my commercial license I didn’t celebrate, I was looking forward to the next cockpit I’ll get into. This, for me, is my way of celebrating, flying!”
Mbabazi believes she is in the minority because of the belief that flying is a man’s job. She is delighted that she has paved the way for many dreamers in proving the critics wrong.
“I like to view my challenges as the reasons to celebrate having reached my goal. As a woman in a male dominated field, no doubt, you have to prove yourself, but hard work always pays off.”
Mbabazi is among many women in Rwanda who are the backbone of the country. Rwanda is going through great lengths to rebuild itself from the 1994 genocide, which left a dominant female population of an estimated 51%.
Laws have been set in place to provide more gender equality in the country. Women are allowed to own land and take more initiative in business and in politics. Rwanda has the highest number of women in parliament in the world and was the first country to have more than 50 female members of parliament.
And now there is a woman in the air.

Love At First Flight

One person’s passion can change the fate of humanity for good. Add a dose of personal tragedy to the mix, and you get a fascinating case study in the drive to change healthcare in Africa’s second-largest and fastest-growing economy.
<div id="attachment_175" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-175" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-175" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1-2-731x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="664" />Ola OrekunrinWelcome to the world of Ola Orekunrin, medical doctor, helicopter pilot, author, medical research fellow, fan of Hannibal Lecter movies and one of Nigeria’s trailblazing entrepreneurs.</div>
Orekunrin, 25, is among the brightest of a new breed of young and visionary entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, she is an African who has made her name in Europe and is now bringing home that experience to the continent to create wealth and jobs. She saw an opportunity in helping everyone from oil companies to factories airlift injured workers to distant hospitals after accidents.
Nigerians have been talking about an air ambulance system for the country since the early 1960s. No-one had taken up the idea, until Orekunrin stepped in two years ago.
“I’m very passionate about healthcare in Nigeria and I really do believe I was born to practise medicine,” she says.
How has she achieved so much at such a young age? A healthy measure of humility may be one reason.
“I’m the most clumsy, disorganized, eccentric person ever…honestly,” she says defensively.
The trauma and emergency specialist is poised to change the face of medical practice on the continent with Flying Doctors Nigeria Limited—West Africa’s first medical emergency evacuation service. She studied air ambulance services in India and elsewhere in Africa, before founding Flying Doctors with £200,000 ($313,000). The money came from the liquidation of her assets, including her life savings, fast car and London apartment. Private investors matched the money.
Today, she employs 25 professionals and the firm is poised for speedy growth, considering the retinue of current and prospective clients in the financial services, petroleum and public sectors.
“Our main clients are from the oil and gas industry and manufacturing firms. I definitely think patronage from these sectors is set to grow,” she says.
The service that Flying Doctors provides fills a gaping hole in quality healthcare in the world’s sixth-largest crude oil producer. Often distances between factories, remote oil industry installations and hospitals can be more than 100 kilometers. For this reason alone, Orekunrin is optimistic about more business coming from Nigerian and international corporates. She also expects increased business from the public sector and state governments, as most do not have organised disaster management systems.
“Tragedy led me to entrepreneurship,” she says. “I believe that perhaps my sister, who died when she was just 12 years old, may have lived if this sort of service was available in Nigeria at the time. I feel the need to make a difference and prevent it happening to someone else. So my main childhood motivation for becoming a doctor was because my sister was ill when I was growing up and I had very positive experiences with doctors and nurses. My mother wasn’t keen on me taking up flying, my other interest, so I went to medical school. My inner-rebellious child started learning to fly as soon as I left medical school. I love flying now, nearly as much as medicine!”
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Born in London and raised in a working-class foster home in Lowestoft, a little fishing town in the East of England, she enrolled for a medical degree at the University of York and qualified at 21—one of the youngest ever to take the doctor’s Hippocratic Oath in Britain.
Barely out of medical school, she jetted off to Japan for medical research work and then China, where she had “one of the most invaluable experiences”, in addition to picking up Japanese and a liking for sushi.
“My proficiency in Japanese meant nothing to people in China,” she told FORBES AFRICA. “After growing up in England, Asia was an interesting shock to my system, but my experience there has greatly influenced my work ethic and attitude to life.”
Now Orekunrin lives in Lagos, West Africa’s commercial hub and Africa’s fastest growing city with a current population of 19 million.
“It’s hard enough practising medicine in Nigeria, and I’ve seen that people tend to wonder why I am doing what I am doing now. I am getting used to the positive prejudice,” she quips.
“Starting a business like this has been much harder than I thought. It was a lot of hard work, with a lot of discouragement. There were a number of points when I thought it would never happen. It took an enormous amount of dedication, focus and sacrifice. But the number of lives we save each year makes it all worth it. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.”
Flying Doctors received its initial technical support from the UK’s East Anglian Air Ambulance Service. A portion of operating profits is ploughed into the Flying Doctors Foundation, which funds public healthcare projects in Nigeria. She won’t disclose what the firm is currently worth, but the rapid response air ambulance service they provide has been hailed as one of the most important healthcare innovations in Nigeria this decade.
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Tag: Pilot

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

In The Air, She Is Boss

Flying The Dream

Women Power At 30,000ft

Feel The Fear And Fly Anyway

Love At First Flight

Flying Doctor Shoots For The Stars