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Female pilots: Which airline has the highest number?

BBC

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Airlines have been stepping up their efforts to recruit more female pilots to meet the increasing demand for travel.

They also report information from the International Society of Women Airline Pilots.

That would be Box-Office International Airlines, BOIA for short.

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If the ratio of male:female students becoming airline pilots are roughly the same, is there an issue?

Fair point, but you can also turn it on its head. Why aren't there equal numbers - what are the reasons, and can they be removed?

Women as a group do not want to be pilots and do the job as much as men. Although cultural marxism would have you believe the sexes are identical, in reality, they are not.

What puts you in the position to make such a dogmatic statement? Why are Indian women much keener to be pilots?

Nothing particularly. Its an observation that if there are equal opportunities of training and employment, and there is actually positive discrimination towards women, then it must come down to a personal choice of career. Indians, no idea, but different cultures have different perceptions and aspirations.

My ex was a pilot,
She was not particularly interested in aeroplanes per se, but father and brother was pilots, might as well give it a try and she did.
She was good, but not really talented. Better at teaching flying and writing manuals but we argued occasionally how to do this and crosswind landings and that.
She flew the book, I flew the airplane.
Have worked with quite a few female pilots, some are really good, some are pains in the arses, just like male pilots,
Wish there was more female pilots, makes for good conversations in the cockpit, and it smells better as well.
Had a female Chief Pilot once, she taught me good things and could fly circles around me..

150 years ago female doctors were almost unknown, and I'm sure there were claims that women didn't want to be/were temperamentally unsuited to be doctors. Now the majority of new doctors are female.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TowerDog (Post 10304921)

Have worked with quite a few female pilots, some are really good, some are pains in the arses, just like male pilots,
Wish there was more female pilots, makes for good conversations in the cockpit, and it smells better as well.
Had a female Chief Pilot once, she taught me good things and could fly circles around me..

This ^^^^
Thank you for posting that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TowerDog (Post 10304921)

Apologies for a facetious question, but how does one “fly circles around” another person? Surely a pilot is equally as qualified as another, and are flying IAW the manual? Granted, experience is a great thing, but it’s not exactly Maverick v Iceman up there is it?

In India I wonder if it’s simply a question of opportunities and opportunism - rapid growth, huge demand, high salary and possibly less competition for entry compared to medicine and such high paying and respectable roles.

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Originally Posted by Dannyboy39 (Post 10305141)

Flying circles around somebody is slang for being a better pilot.
This was in bush Alaska where flying skills were needed for everyday survival, no manual to memorize.

I'm not a pilot, but surely if all you needed was the manual then planes wouldn't need pilots as a computer could be programmed with the manual?

There are lots of female Doctors in India too!

There may be strong pressure on males to enter business especially if there is a family business in the widest sense - and this therefore means there may be more opportunity for women in the professions.

Do I detect hidden sexism in the recent threads referring to a MAN(ual)? :ok:

FFS - just strip gender identification off applications and hire on merit. Its that simple.

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Originally Posted by Dannyboy39 (Post 10305141)

You’re right but as in all walks of life some people are better suited to some jobs than others, I wish more females would take up the profession, a larger gene pool of female pilots means that some airlines wouldn’t feel the need to positively discriminate in favour of women, because ultimately that’s inst good for the airline or indeed females.

I dont give a toss about your colour, race, sex or sexually inclination so long as you can reach the required standard, if that means all white males or all black females so be it, there are plenty of very capable female pilots out there, unfortunately they are let down by a very small minority of females who feel that their sex gives them the right to be off sick more often or seek softer less gruelling roster patterns due child care issues, who of course may in turn be let down by their male co parents.

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Originally Posted by Alsacienne (Post 10305769)

Do I detect hidden sexism in the recent threads referring to a MAN(ual)? :ok:

I think the book you are referring to is with immediate effect to be called "personual"

Are we talking about the absolute number of female pilots (one would expect a large legacy carrier to lead) or the percentage of females (here a small new start up would probably lead)?

As has been mentioned there is no reason why an equal number of females will want to become pilots. When I used to hang out on roof gardens there were far more men than women - although not 100%. I believe fundamentally that people should not be barred from doing the job that they want as a result of their gender or any other factor (other than ability). This is not the same as saying that there should be a quota even a 50% quota as has been suggested for some industries. (Think of the impracticability of it over the workforce as a whole.) You could argue that the key issue is the proportion of applicants from females. I suspect that they key issue these days is in any case not your sex but what passport you hold. (Try getting a job with an American carrier if you are not a US citizen. Its true elsewhere and Brexit may not help.)

There will be a cohort effect as women take a long time to work through the system. Given the incremental seniority based systems used by legacy carriers it will take many years for anything to change. Seniority based systems are effectively based on how old you are when you join and pay may not be always be matched to experience Would this be picked up by some as a reason to move away from seniority. Lots of legacy airlines will say that we really don't want to go there.

Tied in with the last two points, should rosters be made to help out women? Again seniority doesn't help but its a far bigger issue than this. If women are given special advantages this would affect men who may well have a working wife and have domestic responsibilities (and some feminist groups see everything as a one street for women forgetting that men have issues as well). A Virgin style rotating seniority for rostering could help - but will it happen?

Let me stop before I get more controversial and upset more people...

On a side note, and this isn’t exclusively a female reason - this industry isn’t exactly conducive for a home life. That is also not exclusive to just the pilot community. There is a reason why the divorce rate in aviation will be massively higher than average. You’re doing long days/weeks down the routes. If you’re doing LHR-SIN-SYD-SIN-LHR you’re away from home for 10 days. If you want to start a family, in some aviation jobs it’s not really compatible.