Originally Posted by
TinFoilhat2
The very fact there is a quota system is all the evidence you need.
Is there? So we do know that some of the Academy and cadet classes have a 50/50 gender ratio, but they have only been a small minority of training positions. As far as making it onto a jet I believe in the last wave of recruitment at Australian airlines (up until last year) the
percentage of female applicants for positions was roughly the same as job offers. My own personal observation was it was around 10-15%. Industry stats show licences issued in 2010-15 were
8-9% female, increasing each year I think with a lot of commercial aviation like ag flying would be more male dominated so a higher proportion of females would be attracted into airlines. So 10-15% of new hires being female in 2015-20 isn't unexpected or as a result of a quota. It is still a minority of overall recruitment, nowhere near 50/50.
From what I'm also told most of the recruiting process is de-identified, when sorting through interview results, aptitude and sim test results the candidate's details and even name aren't disclosed to ensure process is as fair as possible.
Now what I do believe is airlines have stated they
Aim to move recruitment closer to 50/50, but not through a quota. They aim to do this via increasing the pool of females wanting to fly. Whether it be via Advertising, media appearances, careers days, school visits, greater visibility etc. There's nothing wrong with that in of itself and that isn't a quota system. There's lots of historical reasons why women haven't been involved in aviation and some have decided it's time to change that.
This may have worked, I read somewhere in the recent past (can't find it just now) that recent classes at some of the aviation uni degrees have been closer to 20-40% female. So that's young people interested in Aviation careers who are enrolling in a degree of their own free will, not just being "gifted" a position because of a "quota". So more females are now freely choosing flying as a career than even 10 years ago, again, not the result of preferential quotas.
You are clearly some sort of feminist
Hmmm, wouldn't have used that word to describe myself. I just think a lot of the gripes here against females are a bit overblown.
On top of that if you are also saying that current representation is about 5% and about 5% of applicants are women well then that is a 100% success rate on hiring,
Sorry, you may have to look at your maths there. 5% of pilots being female and 5% of applicants being female doesn't mean it's a 100% success rate in recruitment for females.
merit is the only yard stick that should be used to measure the success of these candidates
And this is where it can get a bit complicated. I think most people who aim for a pilot role will make good pilots. However generally the amount of good applicants usually exceeds positions. So take the best on "merit", easy huh? Well, what defines "merit"? A lot of different answers will flow.
I've asked this question to people and have had dozens of answers. "Best pure stick and rudder skills". "Most total hours". "All ex military first of all". "All ex PNG". "Best Maths and Physics scores" "had their CPL the longest". "Didn't train at a sausage factory". "Good blokes who you can sink beers with on overnights". Then the more personality type answers, communications skills, decision making, empathy, judgement, maturity, etc. In reality it is a combination of a lot of things, and I think there's now probably more emphasis on things that women may do slightly better at, especially in late teens early twenty somethings. It has been proven that females generally mature a bit quicker than men. I wonder if that is observed more in recruiting these days? Maybe that's the cause of cadet recruits, who are likelier to be younger, to be more skewed toward women.
I wonder if the resentment toward the so called "HR" method of recruitment is producing pilots who whilst competent don't fit into the traditional mold of what some believe a pilot should be. I remember once hearing about a so called incompetent female pilot, upon flying with her I wondered what the fuss was about, then I realised the criticism was things like "she's too soft", "she's too nice towards cabin crew, they'd walk over her in an emergency", "her hobbies outside of work aren't what real pilots would find interesting". Nonsense like that. But she was fine.
So is it because how airlines have defined what "merit" is that we see more women in flight decks? Perhaps, you can hardly call that a quota system though.