Magda Baillie

A snapshot

Born in Johannesburg in South Africa, Magda has been working in the African travel industry for the past 30 years, with a combination of working for South Africa-based DMCs and Africa-specific aviation companies. Having been so fortunate to have experienced many different safaris, including a safari with first-time visitors to Africa, she is passionate about providing an amazing service to ensure clients have the best experience. She is very excited to be part of the Yellow Zebra Operations Team.

African countries visited

South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania

Most memorable experience

“Hot air ballooning in the Maasai Mara during the migration tops anything I have ever done or experienced in my life. It was an early morning start at sunrise and the most amazing flight dipping into the ravines with the flames off to take it all in. We landed right in the middle of a massive herd of wildebeest, with the most amazing champagne breakfast waiting for us. One of the highlights of my life.

“My runner-up would be Tswalu. We were on an afternoon safari, and it happened to be at full moon. Before sunset, we drove up a massive sand dune and lodge staff laid out some blankets for us to enjoy our sundowners. We sat there and watched the most incredible sunset followed by the full moon rising. It was absolutely magical!”

Magda's biography

Magda studied Travel & Tourism Management at the University of Pretoria. Her main goal for her studies was to go into a career in ecotourism. She was very fortunate to be offered a position at Thornybush Game Lodge after her studies. At Thornybush, she was responsible for the day-to-day running of the camp and hosting guests during their stay. This gave her great insight into the daily running of a private lodge.

After her time at Thornybush, Magda developed a further keen interest, in aviation. She joined a private air charter company called Streamline Air Charter. Streamline’s flying was 100% tourism orientated, and she was responsible for all of the operational aspects of the charter flights, including dealing with all the DMCs and lodges. The team was fortunate in that the company was the main private flight provider for most of the big lodges, including Wilderness Safaris (as they were known back then) before they acquired Wilderness Air, Londolozi, Singita, and &Beyond (at that time they were still Conservation Corporation Africa). In time, she married the owner of Streamline and they ran the business together, side by side, for many years. They had a great working relationship with these and many other lodges, and were very fortunate to travel to many of them during their spare time. Having always had a big love for nature and the bush, they really counted themselves very lucky. Growing up in South Africa, they had been regular visitors of the Kruger National Park, and now being able to experience the private lodges first hand on a fairly regular basis was absolutely incredible.

Magda’s years in aviation with her husband included a merger with Federal Air, where she was again part of the operational team planning the daily shuttle flights. Then, venturing into something brand new, they built and ran a 5-star hotel in the village of Dullstroom, called Peebles Country Retreat. This project involved seeing hospitality from a totally different perspective, and they were fully hands on. They loved every minute, but they missed aviation, so after about 5 years in Dullstroom they moved back into aviation and started up Bateleur Air Charter.

Magda took some time off work raising two children, and when she was ready to get back into work the only option for her was to return to travel. She found herself working for one of the DMCs in South Africa, The Inside Edge, managing bookings for the inbound tourism sector into Africa. She stayed with this company until the end of Covid. At that time (August 2021), she made the decision to emigrate to the UK.

Magda was very keen to find her happy place back in the travel industry and at last managed to find a position with an aviation company specialising in private jets, called Jet Luxe. She worked for them for just under 2 years, while constantly keeping an eye out for possibilities in the African travel sector. Being offered the position at Yellow Zebra has been like a dream come true and she feels like she has finally found her happy place here in the UK. A dream destination that has been on her bucket list for many, many years is Uganda, for gorilla trekking!