Like several other Nigerian women who have broken barriers, Captain Ibironke Rotimi-Olajide made history when she became the first African female pilot to fly the Embraer 195-E2 aircraft. She is also the first female commander on the E 195 aircraft in Africa.
In recognition of her achievements, Rotimi-Olajide was honoured with the prestigious Women in Aviation award in 2021.
The Lagos-born pilot, who was raised by medical doctor-parents, transitioned from being an aircraft engineer to a pilot to fulfil her dream. So far, she has flown more than 5,000 hours in her career as a pilot.
In this interview with Saturday Sun, she gives an account of her career as a pilot, the challenges of being a wife and mother; working in a male-dominated profession and the pressures that come with it.
By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
How are you and how has life been with you?
Very well, I have not been flying much lately because some of the aircraft I fly are on ground, due for maintenance. So I just use this period to study and do other things but I reckon that in a month’s time l will be flying a lot.
How do you cope with the pressure of being a mother, wife and a pilot, given the challenges of the job?
Well, I try to balance it to the best of my ability. I have two children – a boy and a girl. I thank God that my mum is here and that has really helped me, especially this period that I was upgraded to a captain. When I was a first officer, there were still lots of work to be done, but during those periods, when I was going on training and nobody was around, then it was only my son. I’d just take him with the nanny, drop them at my sister’s house when I was going on a four-day training. I just think ahead. Now, I spend time with them. Most times, I come back home. If I am away, like when there is a layover (sleeping outside my home) or if I am working overnight, my mum helps out and my husband too.
Is your husband also a pilot?
No, but he is also in the industry. He is a helicopter engineer. He does not work in the country, so he is away for six weeks and when he comes back to Lagos, he is around for six weeks. And God has been so faithful and wonderful. Most times when I’m away for a long period, he is usually available. There was a time I was away for training, he was available here, my mum was not around, and he was on ground all through that period.
How do you feel being the youngest African pilot
to fly the Embraer 195-E2?
Well, if you’re talking about age, I fall within the younger age group. But there are also younger females that are in the industry, so I wouldn’t say I am the youngest. I feel extremely honoured to be recognised as the first female pilot on the Embraer 195-E2 aircraft in Africa. I thank God for that. All along, it’s been a combination of hard work, perseverance and rigorous training, so that has brought me and also built me to make me who I am today.
You started your career in the aviation industry as an aircraft engineer, and later trained as a pilot. How did you achieve that?
Yes, I started my career as an engineer; I started on the Boeing 737 aircraft in 2008 and for five years, I was with Aero Contractors. They gave me the opportunity to start my career as the youngest engineer. We were two females that were employed at that time, but in all, I was the youngest. I had just finished from the College of Aviation that same year, 2008, and then a few months later, I found myself at Aero Contractors, where I was trained on the Boeing 737 aircraft as an engineer. But I had to go for another course, so they just brought the instructor in because we were quite a number of people that attended the training at Aero Training School in Lagos.
How did you feel being one of the only two female students in a class of over 20?
Well, what I actually tell myself when I find myself in such situations, is that I am here for a purpose, and I hardly ever get intimidated. If I allow that to ruin me, I won’t be able to achieve what I want to achieve. My aim of being in that classroom was that I needed to learn what was being taught, I needed to do this. The classes were from morning till evening, and I still remember three of us going to Aero head office to study in the evenings after classes, and this lasted for the whole duration of the training. It was rigorous. However, I always remembered what my father used to tell me, ‘people that achieve things have only one head just like you do. So what stops you from achieving your goals?’
I like to have the go-getter spirit, just like my mum who is currently the head of Aero Medical Standards at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). My mum is a medical doctor; she was actually heading the Aero Medical Centre at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology in Zaria. She set up the Aero Medical Centre in Zaria before she retired and joined the regulatory body.
Did you ever have a dream or ambition of becoming a pilot while you were in secondary school?
Well, to be honest, I did not even think about aviation earlier because you know in secondary school, you are asked what you want to be, especially after junior secondary school. You know whether you want to go into science, arts or commercial. Because both of my parents are doctors, my mind was inclined towards medicine. I was in science class and when I was there I was just thinking, at one point, whether I would be able to stand the sight of blood. That was how I started having a second thought. I thought of Geology or Civil Engineering, or something outside but eventually the aviation college came up with exams and my mum said okay, come and write the exams and give it a shot. Write the exams and see what happens because the universities were on strike then. I did that and I got an admission letter. I was a bit reluctant. I said okay, let me give it a shot and see how far this will take me. Little did I know that God was working out things for me.
You also got trained abroad. What is the name of the school?
I was at Riverside Flight Centre School, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA for about a year. I already knew that when I get back, I want to start flying the SNG jet for a commercial airline. The weight of the aircraft will determine whether you need to go for a particular course on that particular aircraft or not. So, obviously, the one I wanted to fly will be carrying 100 passengers. And so, obviously, I want to go for the same course again because the systems are complex and every other thing. They are not basic like the ones I used to train. So, I went to Dallas, Texas for one month. I was there for the training proper. My first job was at Medview Airline. That was where I started my career. It was the same aircraft that I was fixing that I was flying. It was just in 2001 that Air Peace sent me on this training on the Embraer 195-E2. So that is what I have been flying ever since.
What have been your challenges so far working as a pilot?
We know that traditionally, the aviation industry has been perceived to be for only males because, right from time, it was referred to as a male-dominated industry. There have been challenges here and there starting from the training. It is not an easy job; a lot of people think that pilots just jump on the aircraft. Flying an aircraft goes beyond that. You need to know how much time one spends preparing for a flight from Lagos to Abuja for instance. Personally, I call myself a proactive pilot. I prepare myself before going for a flight. Like now, I have my programme; I already know that tomorrow, my first point of call is Abuja, and I will be doing four or six landings, we have a roster ahead of time. So, first thing, before I leave my house, let’s say 6:30am, departure to Abuja; Number one, waking up early is already challenging. I am waking up in the morning at 4:20 am because I need to get ready to get to work. Sometimes I might be required to fly overnight and return early in the morning. These are some of the challenges but I have staff around to do certain things and I take some of them off my mind, knowing that somebody is handling them.
You mean you wake up at 4:20am?
Yes, because I need to be at work at 5:30am once I am working early shifts, no matter what. There are some times that one doesn’t really get enough sleep. But you need to be up early. Drag yourself out of bed, go shower, get whatever you need. So the night before, I have already packed my suitcase with all the necessary things I need for the next day.
So, when I wake up, I get ready and check the weather app on my phone. I check what we have for the day; If there will be haze, what is the visibility and if there is, let me know beforehand. Will I be able to get into Abuja? In the next 30 minutes, what will be the trend of the weather? During the rainy season, I do check whether it will rain in Lagos. Will I be able to depart from Lagos? So already, I have checked those things before I leave. When I’m airborne, I check the weather and consider where to take. I think about all those things because right now in the aircraft, I am the captain. So I have the final decision, I can get input from other people, but I have the final decision to make, so I really need to prepare myself. It is not as if when I get there, as the captain, I forget to check. No. I have to prepare myself because I am the role model there for others. I need to prepare myself first, that is the first thing. From there I get to the airport, to the dispatch office because they need to brief me, and give me the weather idea, to know where I will be going through, the status of the aircraft; I need to know all those things. They give me all the documents. I have to crosscheck to know if my documents are correct and complete. I do all those things with the first officer. Most times I tell them 6:25am, I’m closing my door and that I need to leave by 6:30am. I’m trying to achieve an outer departure because that aircraft may be doing ten more landings after me, but the first flight of the day determines whether those flights are going to be delayed or not.
What do you consider most important before you take off?
First thing is safety before I start thinking of any other thing, because if I get to the airplane and then notice that there is an issue in the aircraft, obviously I cannot go. I cannot say because there are going to be ten landings let me go. No. I will call to ask, ‘what is happening? Can we get the engineers because I am on ground, and I am at the base?’ What does the book say? I get out my books. What does it say about the problem? Is it a no go area? Is it something that could be deferred for a particular number of days? Those are the things I will check for. So, there are a lot of things we do. That is why we are there one hour before departure for domestic flights.
But for international flights or regional routes like Accra, Dakar, Abidjan, Johannesburg, etc. it’s one hour thirty minutes. So I have to be here before the time to go through all these things. That said, I then go to the aircraft. I have my cabin crew on board. I need to ask questions from them if they have done their checks. I need to go round to see that the aircraft is okay, even though the engineers have checked, they might have missed something. So, I need to go again, go round the documents, then I delegate duties. First officer, have you checked the extra documents? Are they up to date? That person will check. When they are calling for boarding, I need to brief my crew. I need to know if anyone is okay, and know those who are tired, the days they have worked for, because the maximum number of days and maximum hours in aviation are regulated. It is a highly regulated industry. So, all those things are important. Have you worked for anybody, let’s say for seven days? If the answer is yes, I’m gonna step down that person, because it’s not safe for anybody. You tell me today is your seventh day at work, I will just say, ‘really? What does your regulation say?’ I have never faced such a problem because they know you can never work for seven days straight. It is illegal.
Do you occasionally feel harassed by your male counterparts?
You know sometimes how it feels. You know what happens when you are working with the male counterparts. There are some of them that are… some of them have a problem with the female being the leader. And I feel it is not only in the aviation industry, it cuts across all sectors. So, but the thing I tell myself is that I am going to do a job and I am not here to please you. So, if you have a problem with that, too bad. I am not going to sit down and the person will be behaving as if he is not comfortable with me. I don’t accept such because personally I don’t care whom I fly with except if the person does something that is of safety concern, that is when I will have a problem with the person. However, I still fly with the person, let me see what happens. I have been faced with that before but one has to find a way to handle some of these issues.
Who is your role model?
Someone may be expecting me to say, I have a female role model. I don’t have a female pilot role model, because the ratio of female pilots is quite low. It is not as if maybe I was inspired by a female pilot, I wasn’t. It was my mum who made me enrol in the college in Zaria, and then all along even after the engineering course or that period that I was there, my dad would say, ‘she is going to be a pilot.’ He still wanted me to go to the pilot school, at that time I wasn’t really thrilled that this man wanted me to attend flying school, but eventually he was happy I did. What broke my heart was that he wasn’t alive to see me becoming a pilot.
So, your dad died before you finished training as a pilot?
The same year he passed on, was the year my command sent me to pilot school. It was actually in 2023, the same year I was upgraded. I was looking at that, ‘this is actually the man that wanted me to fly.’ I was looking forward to one day I was going to fly him as a captain of an aircraft, but I never had that opportunity.
What advice would you give to other career women?
Generally, it is tough, especially when the woman finds herself in a male dominated industry. It is extremely tough there. It is also tough in any industry where females are not allowed to thrive. Now coming to career women, one has to set out to achieve goals because whatever career you find yourself in, you are there to achieve goals within a given period. There is this acronym I read about and it made a lot of sense to me. It says that people have to be SMART about their goals. And someone asks, ‘What do you mean by smart?’First, one has to be specific, for instance in this aviation industry if a female wants to become a pilot, she has to be specific.
I want to become a pilot and then you start shopping for a flying school because you have really made up your mind on what you want to do and the school you want to go to. That particular goal that you have chosen or career objectives is measured. This is how much I have to be paying. For me to get to that commercial pilot flying school, where do I start from, will my parents pay, get a family member to sponsor me, or to be sponsored by a state government or an oil company or an airline? You consider that one, which also applies to other areas, not just the aviation industry. One can use it to apply to other fields.
Looking at the aviation industry facts and figures, what hope do you think women have to end workplace discrimination?
To be very honest with you, I usually look at it this way; whether we like it or not, there is a subtle discrimination that still lingers, even if anyone says, after all, we have gotten to this point. Some years ago, to become a captain, you had to go through some ways. There is still that subtle discrimination, it still exists. Whatever anybody says, it is still there.