Interview with former fastjet Pilot Rafal Rajchel

My name is Rafał, and I'm 34 now. Currently, I'm flying A320s in Georgia for one of the biggest European low-cost carriers.

Yes, actually, when I was a child, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but then I came back down to Earth. Aviation is kind of a tradition in my family.

My pilot career wasn't very simple. However, I don't regret any of the decisions I made. I started out gliding in southern Poland. I did my first solo flight when I was 17. Right after that, with the help of my family, I got my PPL. My first plane was a Zlin 142 (SP-ASL); then I started towing gliders in a Yak-12 and a PZL-104 Wilga - great planes. I studied aviation engineering at the University of Technology in Rzeszów and completed my "frozen" ATPL during my studies. After graduating, I got a position as a first officer at LOT Polish Airlines. My happiness didn't last long, though, as Centralwings (a Polish charter airline) went bankrupt, and just as quickly as I got the job, I lost it, even before my ERJ training had started.

Those were tough times for some airlines. I managed to get my Flight Instructor and Test Pilot ratings, then started working at the Air Force Institute of Technology on the flying laboratory project. It was a funny silver plane - Sonex. I also bought the aviation magazine PILOT Club, where I was co-owner and Editor-in-Chief back then.

I kept on trying to get a job at an airline. Finally, I got a position as a First Officer at Sprintair. Pilots had to have 1,000 hours total time in those days to get any job. I flew Saab 340s for the next 3 years, mostly cargo operations for UPS and TNT. Meanwhile, I was flying for Flyjet - a small corporate airline in Warsaw - whose callsign was "fastjet", funnily enough. So Africa was a kind of "final destination".

After that, there was an opportunity to switch to the A320. A new Polish charter airline was recruiting - Bingo Airways. It had only 4 planes, three of them with smiley faces in a Chupa-Chups livery . The company faced some financial issues and was trying to survive by taking on wet lease jobs in Europe and North Africa. We used to fly for Windavia (a French tour operator) and Syphax (a Tunisian-owned charter airline). It was a great adventure and good fun. Unfortunately, Bingo went bankrupt around 2013, leaving pilots and cabin crew with unpaid salaries.

I found a short-term job on one of the former Bingo planes for a company called New Livingstone, based in Milano Malpensa. But I was looking for something more stable, so I applied to easyJet. Due to a lack of LVO training, recruiters suggested fastjet - a British company operating in East Africa that I had never heard of. I gave it a try, and it was a really great time. I stayed with the company, based in Dar es Salaam, for 3 years until all the expat pilots were laid off. The airline employed a really nice bunch of pilots from all around the world and local cabin crew. They offered good contracts with competitive salaries.

I flew on her, but I didn't have any special memories until you asked me about it. I looked at my old pictures and realized that I had a nice jumpseat trip on this plane. While traveling in company uniform in Tanzania, we were allowed to fly free of charge, so one day I took a flight to Mbeya, Songwe. It was a special day - September 1, 2016 - the day of a total solar eclipse. I entered coordinates in Google Maps and found a place where the eclipse would be most spectacular and longest, and then I planned a trip there. It was near the city of Mbeya, where most of Tanzania's gold mines and coffee plantations are, and the airline operated there mainly for the mine workers. Mbeya is a very difficult airport for pilots.

It's in a valley surrounded by high mountain ranges. There are no lights at all; it's only an RNAV approach with a steep glide path. The runway slopes uphill, and there's a very deep ditch at the end. Only captains were allowed to land there. On the day I was there, the captain was new to the company, having come from Emirates, where he'd flown the 777, and it was his first flight to Mbeya. He was surprised that there wasn't even a PAPI or any runway markings. He made a very rough, "crash" landing, which was one of the hardest I've ever experienced. But afterwards, like a real gentleman, he said to the passengers over the PA, "I'm very sorry about my landing." There was a lot of laughter because we knew this happened to everyone at this place...

Flying in Africa is, let's say, very specific. Especially flying to small domestic airports. There are no precision approaches or radar coverage. Fastjet was the first low-cost airline in East Africa, opening up air travel to local people who had never even had a chance to fly before. Our tickets often cost less than $50, compared with $200-$400 tickets from other operators on the same routes. So many of our passengers were flying for the first time in their lives. You could see people, for example from the Serengeti or some small villages, who didn't even know how to use the escalator at the airport.

Most of them were really scared to fly, so we, as the crew, had to take this into account. Tanzania is an equatorial country, and because of the characteristics of the ITCZ, there are two rainy seasons each year. One, a short one, is in December, and the second and longer one is in April. On these days, you can observe CB clouds with tops reaching FL400 and a diameter of 60NM. This time of year was very tough for us to fly. Wildlife is also a bit of a hassle in this part of the world. Bird strikes happened every day, and the birds are much bigger than in Europe. Engineers often kept spare fan blades in the car so they could change them quickly.

As with everything, it has its pros and cons. My previous airline was a charter airline, so I spent a lot of time in hotels far from home. After a while, you can get tired of that. Low-cost airlines have the advantage of saving on hotels. That means we come home every day. Some people like it, some don’t..;) Apart from that, there are no other differences from legacy airlines. We had hot catering, crew meals, crew transport, and business-class seats on some aircraft.

Until last year, I had my FI rating, but I’ve stopped renewing it now. Low-cost carriers “use” us to the limit, and we usually fly the maximum number of hours in a year. So I don’t really have time for general aviation now. Hopefully, one day I’ll come back to it. As a passenger, I love to travel, but I don’t like long flights.