Sefofane operates in an environment that is foreign to many people. Operations into and out of remote airstrips with blue chip foreign tourists requires pilots who are technically competent and able to communicate well with clients. Sefofane is privileged to fly into some of the most pristine wilderness destinations in the world. We believe flying is an integral part of a guest?s holiday experience and therefore our pilots need to have a fundamental enthusiasm for being in such areas.
We have learned that there is no substitute for getting the right people in our business at the outset. All our pilots are passionate about their jobs and are with Sefofane because they want to be in wilderness areas.
All Sefofane applicant pilots follow the same rigorous entrance process. When Sefofane is recruiting pilots, notice is given and all applicant Resumes are scrutinized. Suitable applicants write a series of tests which ask questions that are both technical and of a personal nature. Successful applicants are interviewed. After that, successful applicants are employed on a probationary basis.
During their probation period, pilots are given a ground school and 100 hours of flight training. At any time during this training period, pilots who do not meet our standards are removed from our program. During the program our new crew are taught the skills required to enable them to go on line with enough experience to be fully confident in themselves and their equipment. This program is overseen by training captains who themselves have many years and thousands of flying hours of experience.
Pilots who successfully completed our training program go on line after a final route check. But the training does not end there. Indeed a pilot?s training never ends. Regular and routine flight tests are conducted to ensure that all crew are proficient in all aspects of their flying all the time.
Typically pilots stay with Sefofane in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe for two years. Our more successful crew stay longer and graduate onto our larger aircraft, the Cessna Caravans which they then fly for additional two years.
Most recently Sefofane has opened a branch in South Africa and this has opened up further scope for our crew to remain with Sefofane longer and fly larger aircraft still. This process works well for Sefofane. Most flights from South Africa go to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. There is no better crew for the job than those who have lived in the countries of destination. Our crew, know the areas we fly into intimately and are well equipped to look after our guests and ensure that their trips run well.
Sefofane is a small airline and in real terms it operates small planes. Most pilots aspire to fly big planes, so it is no surprise that eventually our pilots leave us. We are very proud of the fact that today we have ex Sefofane pilots in such airlines as Cathay Pacific, Canadian Airlines, South African Airways, South African Express and Comair. Almost without exception these pilots all wish they could return and enjoy the flying they did in Sefofane!
In each country a chief pilot is employed to oversee safety standards and ensure that pilot training and discipline standards are continuously maintained.