You can apply for a Botswana licence after you have logged 500hrs on A2 registered a/c
The licence validation is done only at Gaborone CAAB offices, and no matter who is in charge, is a quite straightforward operation, the time involved mostly depends from which Country your licence is, so no needs of interpretation here
The operator you will work for has to do the paperwork, so it is impossible "do it in Maun then see us"...

What is the high season in Maun? I'm interested in doing some flying seasonally but not year round. Do they take pilots on a seasonal basis?

It was doing something strange the past few days, but seems to be functioning again.

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: the training, licencing, legislative (work and residence permit) processes take so long that it's not usually worth it. There have been some pilots in the past who have come back for a season, but they've spent years working for a company and have built that relationship. Pilots are hired year round, but often we hire and train in the low season so that the pilots are ready for high season, then they take annual leave over the subsequent low seasons.

Thanks for being so helpful! Could you define the low and high seasons from the flying/tourism perspective?

May to September are the busiest months. There is another peak for the Christmas/ New Year period, then it is deadly quiet in February.

Pilot In Pink is absolutely correct. However the busiest season is extending both ends every year. Perhaps because of low season discounts by the safari companies.

Usually how many months before these peak seasons do these companies start the hiring process?

Save your time...

I've been out of aviation for almost 10 years, but i want to get back into it - Been flying here and there getting all my stuff current. I have a FAA CPL+MER(IR) + Instructor rating for all too. About 900 hrs, 80 multi, tailwheel + high performance endorsement. I'm seriously considering going to africa for 2-3 years just to jump start my aviation career again - low pay be damn. Just sick of my desk job - call it a midlife crisis.

From what i've been reading in this forum, i'd have enough hours to go start in a caravan or twin in namibia/bots ? My concern though is more about the theory and exams that i would have to pass? It's been way too long since i looked at ATPL stuff - is that basically whats going to be 'tested' ?

Maybe some suggestions what company i should look into most?

Thanks

Airvans grounded!?

In Botswana you have to pass only the AirLaw exam, not impossible but you need to study some notes that most of the pilots in Maun will have it
I know tha Mack Air and maybe Wilderness Air are looking for Caravan driver, but I believe you should have the rating and some time on type, but not 100% sure

Thanks - i appreciate the info!

Plenty of them flying today. Still waiting to see what happens with respect to a grounding here... I haven't seen any official correspondence about it so far from CAAB.

Current Situation
 

Hi there,
I'm a low-time pilot (~270h with multi-IFR Canadian licences) planning to go to Botswana for job hunting.
I would like to ask, preferably to people that are currently working there or have experience in the area, what is the situation like at the moment:
- are pilots in demand ?
- likelihood to be hired if arriving mid October this year ?
- ... anything else worth knowing really

Getting a Work Permit sub 500h is the issue.

No chance if less than 500hrs and even better chances with 800hrs TT

Absolutely no chance, sorry. You could come to Botswana for a nice holiday, but nothing more than that.
There is a surplus of citizen pilots under 300 hours who are currently looking for work. In order to hire a non-citizen we must justify why we would hire them over a citizen. It would be the same in any country- why hire someone foreign if there are citizens who are unemployed? The only justification that we use is the "Experience" card. We can hire a foreign pilot who is "experienced" in order to fill the gap between the low-hour entry level pilots and the company's senior pilots. The magic number to be considered "experienced" used to be 500 hours (since around 2013), these days it's more like 800 hours and a caravan rating.