Skift Take
Kirsty Henderson has arguably one of the coolest jobs in aviation: She’s a bush pilot, ferrying passengers across scenic African landscapes like Botswana. What’s more, she’s helping show aviation as a viable career path for young women.
The vastness of Africa requires all kinds of transportation. People fly into main hubs, but the most time-efficient way to get around is hopping on to small bush planes. These aircraft are used to provide both planned and unscheduled passenger services to remote areas, touching down on shorter and sometimes dirt runways.
They are an essential part of getting tourists to safari camps, serving as the connective tissue from major airports into the wilds of Africa. Kirsty Henderson, 27, is a pilot for Wilderness Air Botswana. She flies for the company partnered with noted safari company Wilderness Safaris, which has a variety of camps in Botswana around the Okavango Delta.
Wilderness Air began in 1991 with one aircraft based in Botswana servicing two camps in the delta.
