Salva Fatima, the daughter of a bakery employee, became Hyderabad’s first woman commercial pilot. From taking wings on a two-seater Cessna, to navigating global air traffic on an Airbus-320, to clocking a milestone of 550 flying hours, 34-year-old Salva is flying on cloud nine after triumphing multiple struggles in her life. Despite the financial problems and growing up in a poor neighbourhood, one where drinking water from a pipe is still a dream today, she is among a handful of Muslim women in India to hold a commercial pilot license.
The hijabi cockpit girl refused to be shackled by the conservatism of society and her family’s financial constraints. Fatima was the eldest of four siblings and with the job at the local bakery the earnings of her father were meagre. There was a time when Fatima’s college fees led her to the defaulter's list and she was on the verge of quitting, when a god-sent Botany professor (Mrs. Sangeeta) helped her financially, even though Fatima was not a student of her subject.
A decade after soaring in the sky on a Cessna Skyhawk at the Telangana Aviation Academy, Fatima is currently a First Officer with a top private airline and flies the Airbus-320 of the Boeing 737 and is gearing up to fly with the imposing A380 fleet.
Despite the aviation industry’s glamorous connotations of dreamy destinations, gourmet food or dapper passengers, Fatima is simple minded and grounded and, at the moment, is balancing her high-flying career and family. She works hard so that her kids don’t endure the struggles that she did in her childhood and she vows to never quit on the charm of Old Hyderabad for the plush locales in Banjara or Jubilee Hills.
Image source: The Times of India