While one in four Qantas employees had experienced sexual harassment in the past year from a coworker or passenger, female pilots reported the highest rates of sexual harassment and bullying, according to The Australian, which obtained the Qantas report.
That is a very poorly written or simply incorrect summary of the report’s findings.
The report stated:
• Around 1 in 4 male and female cabin crew reported experiencing sexual harassment from a colleague in the past 12 months. (Similar to national average.)
• Female pilots were three times more likely than male pilots to experience sexual harassment from a colleague, with over 1 in 4 female pilots reporting experiences of sexual harassment in the past 12 months.
• Instances of bullying among cabin crew was significantly higher than among pilots. Around 1 in 4 cabin crew reported experiencing bullying in the last 12 months compared to around 1 in 10 pilots. Female pilots were twice as likely to report experiencing bullying
So female pilots are sexually harassed at the same rate as cabin crew and at similar rates to the national average. Female pilots are bullied significantly
less than cabin crew.
Don’t get me wrong, ANY harassment or bullying is inexcusable and we should absolutely target a 0% occurrence rate. But the study does not show pilots to be worse than the rest of the airline or worse than the national average. We should strive to be better but the article feels like it is painting pilots in an unfair light.