PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Jetstar Aiming for 50% Gender Spilt in Interview Candidates
Old 30th Apr 2016, 03:22
  #151 (permalink)  
neville_nobody
 
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No one has suggested bypassing a certain demographic at all. Increasing womens participation is simply broadening the applicant base giving the airline greater access to "the best person for the job"
Well I will bet my house that Jetstar or any other airline for that matter does not have the budget nor the appetite for such an expensive and risky venture.

As pyscho joe points out you can't just recruit people who don't actually exist. So if you want to increase the participation rate of women in aviation you better open your cheque book. You will need to start offering women only flying scholarships, at well in excess of 100K each one, some career counseling and pray that your chosen candidates don't: lose their medical, die in an accident in GA, get married and find that aviation is very difficult on married life, just lose interest, graduate and find that aviation isn't all that it's made out to be and go and study something else or suffer and enconomic downturn and get stuck in the system before they get a few thousand hours and about 5 years of experience before they will even be in a position to apply to Jetstar.

You see the problem in aviation unlike every other industry which women participation is an issue, is that there is a long time between qualifying and actually getting in a position to work as a airline pilot. Mining companies, Banks and the government can just offer uni scholarships and part time work which will boost their numbers instantly but airlines can't do that. Maybe ask around and see how long some QANTAS cadets have been waiting for a shot at QF lately. I would guess 6+ years so far.

IF and it is a to big an IF IMHO you want to increase the participation rate you have to spend money at grass roots aviation in the hope that women will filter through to airline level quality graduates. That is going to take 5-7 years minimum. And is a very very risky venture from the airlines point of view as the chance of losing them along the way is actually quite high.

Last edited by neville_nobody; 30th Apr 2016 at 03:33.
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