I've heard numurous rumors.
1. Supervisor at DCA (won't mention name) must approve each application individually, although the first several were sent on without his approval, so they have to come back and be signed by him.
2. The first ones were to come through Friday (yesterday) - none did.
3. Parliament has been discussing this in open session all week, so Home Affairs will do nothing until after a resolution in gov't.
4. companies are now scrounging for non-grounded pilots, sharing across companies at an alarming rate, and some are even turning away customers (not very often)

But this is Africa (or at least that's what I'm told - I've also been told it's just Africa for beginners) so who knows what the real story is.

I have heard nothing about "low timers being turned down", but then define low timers.

Light twins in Nam
 

So if a guy had 2000 TT or more, but wanted to fly something bigger like a C421, PA31, King Air and such, on which companies' doors would he have to go knockin...

With rules like these, soon Nam will have the highest paid 210 drivers in the world.

Man, if this does happen and I can find a operator that will pay me my old contract salary to go drive a Van and actually have FUN again...i'll dump my aircon'd autopilot-job TODAY!

well, at the moment I have FUN :)

They are paying between N$ 5 000 and N$ 9 000 depending on the season. That's 500 to 900 euros a month.

as flying bigger planes - try Gaberone Botswana, there's one operator there, but he wants 5000 hours.

Other than that, there's only one here in Namibia, and they want you to have flown with them for 3 years before you can fly their twins.

thx darkroomsource
I have been looking around on the internet for operators that fly light twins anywhere in southern africa really.
finding them is relatively easy, knowing which ones are actually looking is the trick...so if anyone knows...

Now THAT'S FUNNY!

Each of us gets a different story every time we talk to any operator. To be clear, if I go into an operator on one day I get one story, three days later another story, and later yet another story, whereas when one of the other guys goes in on the same day, they get a fourth story.

The fact that the government is playing around with work visas makes it even worse, then compound that with the worst three years in tourism in southern Africa ever, and what you get is - no-one is hiring, right now.

Will anyone be hiring in the future? who knows? But the outlook is bleak at the moment.

I know it was kind of a naive question maybe...always good for a laugh though ay...

What i meant was: anyone in any company in any country where they are actually looking (and not necessarily finding) the right drivers.
Yes there might be one or two out there.

I for one work for a company (in India) who cannot find Avanti drivers or Citation drivers and I know of other companies who have similar problems. Now does that have anything to do with people not really being keen on coming to India? I will leave that as a rhetorical question.

This is my breakdown:
FAA ATPL with 6000 TT 2200 ME 1800 C208B

cheers

News regarding 2000tt revolution?

News?
Maybe.

Some pilots, with more than 2000 hours, have received visas. These are pilots who have been online for some time, but have been grounded as a result of this mess.

Some pilots with less than 2000 hours have received letters which authorize them to fly without a visa, and are supposed to be able to get their actual visa in the very near future. These are pilots who have been online for some time, but were grounded as a result of this mess.

No-one knows if ALL online pilots will get their visas.

No-one knows, or is even willing to guess, whether or not visas will be issued for new pilots who have not already been online.

The first two test cases are at Scenic Air. But they were "hired" before the 2000 TT policy was implemented.

We'll see if any new hires will get visas. However, this is probably the last year for foreign pilots in Namibia because the government is stepping up it's training program for Namibian citizens. And if they understand the outcome of the meeting, then they recognize they must train new pilots to 300 hours, not 200 as they have been doing. But, this is Africa, so who knows?

At this point, all the operators are saying basically the same thing - we don't know if we'll be able to get visas for any new pilots, and besides we've had three bad years, so we're not pressed to hire pilots at this time.

They have been trying this for years. Most of the former underprivileged guys and gals get sponsored to train at NATA however the average candidate has proven quite some difficulty in passing the CPL theory exams or attaining a high enough commercial flying proficiency to pass the check rides - quite a waste of public and private funds. The ones that did, all got sucked by Air Namibia pretty quick. I can not imagine they will solve this issue by forcing the operators to take incapable locals - because they won't (please note that I am not saying that each and every one of them falls into that definition, as there are some very capable individuals! but they remain to be few.)

As long as it is economically quite, there will be nothing the operators can't handle with the resources they still have - at least that is what it sounds like.

All in all it is an old subject, they just try and solve the so called expat problem slightly differently as time goes by. The way the patronizing officials treated us taxpaying expatriates finally made me decide to leave three years ago, the attitude just sucked my patience dry. Something you can either accept and deal with or leave.

Thanks for updating..

Anybody know how they came up with the magic number of 2000hrs? If they start now to implement a scheme to train local crew, it will be maybe 6 months before you get 1 or maybe 2 very bright freshly rated comm pilots, now will they have to have a 2000hr TT mark before allowed to work, don`t think so, and by the time they reach that mark they will have been scooped up by Air Namibia as mentioned in a previous post! Who will fund this training scheme? Decisions like these are not beneficial to the operators and like usual the pilots who made the effort to go there and find a job to earn a few pennies and hours a month get the worst end of the deal!:ugh:

Malagant...

I believe the 2000hr restriction is just for expats. In that way they force the operators to hire local guys.

There is already a funded training scheme: NATA has existed for years and is a partially government funded and partially privately funded by mostly German development sponsors. I am not sure how many candidates get selected to become commercial pilots per year, per class - bottom line is that only a very few actually make it to the end and are able to feed the market. In principle NATA has continuously failed to reach it's target numbers and goals.

NATA is the easiest and cheapest way to become a pilot, (even if your parents are rich - makes no difference you will still get funded), you just have to be a Namibian citizen and pass the assessment test and the door is opened for you. Under such beneficial conditions the output numbers are plain sad.

Every couple of years, there is yet another cunning plan coming from the government's direction trying to force the previously disadvantaged pilot cadets into the charter market, where most of them actually don't want to be. At the moment it looks like Air Namibia is taking most of them in. It's cheaper for them to pay these guys & galls a salary than paying the penalties for being non-AA compliant.
Similar story happened in Bots last year or the year before? Didn't last very long though, did it?

any clue on the story in Nam these days?

@soaking: sorted

Csanad... Is that sorted for good meaning that there will be ex-pat pilot jobs for those who turn up? Or is it just sorted for this year?

it seems it was just the typical "chest beating", as you once said, and yes there will be jobs. Wings Over hired a couple of newzees with 250 hours and they got their visas and are online and happy.

things seem back to normal.