Qantas’ search for female pilots has led to more workplace harassment - Quartz [Archive]

Airbubba

5th Nov 2019, 01:14

QF hiring more female pilots leads to more victims of sexual harassment in the #MeToo era:

Qantas’ search for female pilots has led to more workplace harassmentNatasha FrostQuartz (http://www.qz.com/) November 4, 2019Australian airline Qantas has lofty ambitions to increase the number of women in its cockpits.

In 2017, it launched the Nancy Bird Walton initiative, named for the pioneering female pilot (http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/nancy_bird_walton_bio.html), and committed to having women make up at least 20% of its 2018 pilot intake. Within the next decade, the airline said (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/travel/2019/03/qantas-commits-to-more-female-pilots-on-international-women-s-day.html), at least 40% of its new pilot hires will be female. It’s a big jump: As of earlier this year (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/more-women-set-to-soar-under-qantas-plan), around 250 of Qantas’ 4,000 pilots were women. But behind the scenes, according to an independent survey (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-vows-to-do-better-for-cabin-crew-after-harassment-survey-results/news-story/113400336cb634a6b68a1bec0289be49) of 2,400 Qantas pilots and cabin crew, there are significant costs for these female pilots. Some said they experienced a backlash against the campaign, and were forced to bear the brunt of their male colleagues’ ire.

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 (https://www.ft.com/content/4325eb56-fec5-11e9-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47) of sexual harassment and bullying, according to The Australian, (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-vows-to-do-better-for-cabin-crew-after-harassment-survey-results/news-story/113400336cb634a6b68a1bec0289be49) which obtained the Qantas report. In some cases, that bullying includes sexist comments, which two-thirds of female pilots found “common,” or suggestions that they had been given their jobs because of their gender, rather than on merit.

Until 2016, female Qantas pilots had to wear men’s uniforms (https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/style/2016/05/01/qantas-female-pilot-uniforms/). Their uniforms may fit better now, but the atmosphere in the cockpit can still be uncomfortable, as one anonymous commenter (https://twitter.com/EwinHannan/status/1191237500578123776/photo/1) observed in the report: “The men are always telling stories about female pilots. As soon as a female pilot makes a mistake, it’s as if all female pilots are bad or hopeless.” Other airline colleagues noted a culture of “what happens on tour stays on tour,” where whistle-blowers are made to feel like trouble-makers or “put through the absolute ringer” (sic) for speaking out. Qantas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Female pilots face comparable challenges worldwide, with harassment and discrimination reported at airlines in Canada (https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-canada-pilot-sexism-1.4629114), the US (https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/april/pilot/the-seven-percent), and the UK (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46876007).

In the US, pilots have the greatest adjusted gender pay gap (https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Gender-Pay-Gap-2019-Research-Report.pdf) of all professions, according to a Glassdoor report, with a 27% gap in base pay. Surprisingly, this gap appears to be widening. In an email, Geoff Murray, a former commercial pilot and current Oliver Wyman aerospace consultant, said this disparity is probably the result of a lack of seniority among female pilots, who tend to be newer recruits. The first woman employed as a pilot in the US, Emily Warner, was hired as recently as 1973, he said: even now, women make up about 6% (https://www.wai.org/resources/waistats) of all US commercial pilots. The numbers are gradually creeping up, however: In 2018, 7,136 women were certified to fly as airline pilots in the US, up 26% from 2009, out of a total of 99,880.

With aviation facing unprecedented growth, airlines are moving fast to head off a growing shortage of pilots. Many have concluded that women are the answer, and adopted similar policies accordingly: Virgin Australia last year announced (https://australianaviation.com.au/2018/05/virgin-australia-sets-5050-gender-target-for-pilot-cadetships/) that it would be aiming for gender parity among its 2019 cadets. But despite these initiatives, it’s still rare (https://australianaviation.com.au/2019/03/tbt-bridging-the-gap/) to hear a woman’s voice over the public address system. More concerning is how many of the old guard seem to prefer it that way.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/qantas-search-female-pilots-led-194051247.html

Icarus2001

5th Nov 2019, 01:30

Any announcement of gender parity in the cabin crew ranks? In the hangar? Check in staff? Bag loaders? ...

Beer Baron

5th Nov 2019, 01:45

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 (https://www.ft.com/content/4325eb56-fec5-11e9-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47) of sexual harassment and bullying, according to The Australian, (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-vows-to-do-better-for-cabin-crew-after-harassment-survey-results/news-story/113400336cb634a6b68a1bec0289be49) 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.

RU/16

5th Nov 2019, 01:56

Who says 50% of women want to be a pilot? Do 50% of men want to be nurses, hairdressers, beauticians etc?

Airbubba

5th Nov 2019, 02:02

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/763x584/frost_a7d3c04acd762c9e152b2d0bc9865748b5f0a7d7.jpg

Flyboy1987

5th Nov 2019, 02:43

Amazing.

Most want or accept the special treatment to get in then expect to be treated the same as the rest that had to battle.

The jokes and the assumptions were always going to follow once gendar targets/quotas were allowed.

I’d like to see some other percentages.
Maybe the amount of females that apply to the amount that get in, let’s take it one further and compare assessment day results. I know girls that have came out of sims crying (some laughing) as they believe they‘ve just butchered every component of their sim...had their letter of offer a few weeks later.

34R

5th Nov 2019, 03:00

non_state_actor

5th Nov 2019, 03:04

There needs to be acceptance in the general population that Aviation is hard for everybody, it's not because you are a girl that it is hard and somehow you need special treatment.

The problem with this whole quota issue is that it drives resentment from men and woman who made alot of sacrifices and put up with alot just to get into an airline.

dr dre

5th Nov 2019, 03:08

Maybe the amount of females that apply to the amount that get in, let’s take it one further and compare assessment day results. I know girls that have came out of sims crying (some laughing) as they believe they‘ve just butchered every component of their sim...had their letter of offer a few weeks later.

What's your point? I've known plenty of male pilots (myself included) who've also come out of an assessment believing that we've stuffed it up and don't have a chance of getting the job, but then were successful. Maybe we're just humble and too hard on how we performed for such an important event?

And plenty of pilots (male and female) who've come out of a recruiting assessment loudly proclaiming they totally aced it, and are guaranteed of a job. And when the rejection letter arrives it wasn't their fault, the recruiters were too biased/stupid/blind to see their obvious brilliance...

Rated De

5th Nov 2019, 04:58

How interesting.

There is no place for harassment or intimidation of any sort in any workplace.

Consider this..
Sunrise looks doomed.

Short and Long Haul EBA's are front and centre.

To facilitate the above, a requirement for pilots to be the bad guys in the eyes of the public.

QF pilots are now portrayed as misogynistic workplace bullies.

I can see where this is going.........

With well placed stories in the daily rags lamenting the "lack of agreement" on the "amazing Project Sunrise" pilots ought realise that this is now open season.

Obstructionist, kamikaze and now misogynist.

That airlines have a "gender inbalance" is ironically due to the reality that there actually are less women in aviation. Also less in some trades and under representation in the armed forces in some areas.
Is it that women choose other vocations? Yes, quite often it is. The US BLS conducted a long term longitudinal study in "the gender pay gap" finding a small one existed. The cause of it likely to be choice: Women were traditionally attracted to roles with less remuneration.

When the CEO openly states that it is now policy to hire more women pilots is it a surprise that there are more women pilots?

Didn't Qantas have a whole course of female pilots for International Women's day?
What an "amazing" coincidence that despite under representation in the industry, "the best pilots Qantas had on hold all happen to be women, all on International Women's day"

Once it was merit, now gender apparently matters.
Discrimination fixes apparent discrimination.
The mind boggles as to the crewing arrangement should these pilots decide that they would also like children.

maggot

5th Nov 2019, 05:05

Sunfish

5th Nov 2019, 05:08

Rated De

5th Nov 2019, 05:11

This in spades

I would hope for no harassment of any kind but it's rather astounding to have it reported just now. Who would thunkd it

It is contract season after all.

601

5th Nov 2019, 05:21

Women were traditionally attracted to roles with less remuneration.
I guess that there is a pay gap between the CEO and the CP.

dr dre

5th Nov 2019, 05:30

With well placed stories in the daily rags lamenting the "lack of agreement" on the "amazing Project Sunrise" pilots ought realise that this is now open season.

Obstructionist, kamikaze and now misogynist.

It does make a good conspiracy theory, and it does look like there is more to Sunrise than the official company line, but rest assured if management want to can it commissioning a year long independent study into work practices for the sole purpose to put the blame onto a group of your employees it isn't necessary. There are solid reasons to deal with potential harassment and bullying issues amongst all employee groups.

Didn't Qantas have a whole course of female pilots for International Women's day?

No. The course that started in the month of IWD this year (March) was 50% female. The course that started previously was 100% male, the course that started after was 95% male. Overall I'm told unofficially the % of new hire females is roughly similar to the percentage of female applicants.

The mind boggles as to the crewing arrangement should these pilots decide that they would also like children.

Also been unofficially told that over the course of a pilots career male pilots are more likely to take extended periods off work due injury and illness than female pilots due pregnancy. The thought being men, especially older men, have higher rates of chronic illness and and younger men are more likely to undertake extreme and adventure sports that make them more prone to long term injury.

mohikan

5th Nov 2019, 05:34

I read both the black widow and hailstones emails.

They are going to need a scalp, and need one soon

Just for men will be decidedly nervous right now.

Capt Kremin

5th Nov 2019, 06:02

How can you be sexually harassed in these days of gender fluidity?

On a serious note I have a close friend who job is to recruit more women for the ADF. She has complained about the level of entitlement of young women these days who, fully aware of their desirability in the virtue signalling game, act as if their recruitment and preferential advancement into the ADF is but assured.

Other tensions arise from the assumption that women on promotional lists are there for quota purposes; which infuriates those who got there on merit.

The same applies in QF; those most loudly decrying these quotas are the old school female pilots. It's No Win from all perspectives.

Flyboy1987

5th Nov 2019, 06:07

[QUOTE

No. The course that started in the month of IWD this year (March) was 50% female. The course that started previously was 100% male, the course that started after was 95% male. Overall I'm told unofficially the % of new hire females is roughly similar to the percentage of female applicants.
.[/QUOTE]

QLINK had a full intake of females during IWD.
I believe some were even flown into Sydney the week before ground school for photos.

Capt Kremin

5th Nov 2019, 06:08

Also been unofficially told that over the course of a pilots career male pilots are more likely to take extended periods off work due injury and illness than female pilots due pregnancy. The thought being men, especially older men, have higher rates of chronic illness and and younger men are more likely to undertake extreme and adventure sports that make them more prone to long term injury.

Thats probably true but in my experience a large percentage of women drop by the wayside over the span of the average career. Few seem to want to be 60 year old pilots.

Cloud Cutter

5th Nov 2019, 06:19

Who says 50% of women want to be a pilot? Do 50% of men want to be nurses, hairdressers, beauticians etc?

Ah, no one? Literally no one is saying that.

Rated De

5th Nov 2019, 06:24

dr dre

5th Nov 2019, 06:28

Thats probably true but in my experience a large percentage of women drop by the wayside over the span of the average career. Few seem to want to be 60 year old pilots.

Our first Australian female airline pilot is still going strong. There probably haven't been enough female pilots to undergo a full career to make an accurate assessment yet.

The same applies in QF; those most loudly decrying these quotas are the old school female pilots. It's No Win from all perspectives.

If there were quotas that would be an issue. There aren't.

This thread has drifted, there are already enough threads here about female/male pilots, gender quotas in employment etc.

This is about pilots and cabin crew being subjected to harassment and bullying, both males and females.

DutchRoll

5th Nov 2019, 07:15

I've been (straight white male, before people make assumptions I'm speaking on behalf of some fantasy fictitious sisterhood) QF tech crew for 20 years. There is nothing surprising to me in this report.

I have flown with many of the senior female pilots too. All of them have been totally pleasant to fly with. The only pilot in Qantas I absolutely refuse to fly with is a male, and the only ones I see on the roster and roll my eyes thinking "hang in there - you don't have to socialise with them" are also male.

I have spoken personally to junior female pilots who have been concerned that they are "assumed" to be there only due to recruitment quotas. I have also spoken to more than one male pilot who has decided that they will assume the same thing, which is pretty disappointing. I would've thought they'd give them the benefit of doubt before passing judgement. I've had one pilot say to me with a straight face that female pilots shouldn't be rostered together because all they'll do is argue (obviously hasn't been paying attention to many eye watering stories of male-male cockpit interactions over the years!).

Anyway I can relay many comments which have stuck in my head over these years, including quite recently, which have really raised my eyebrows. Unfortunately they're often preceded by "it's probably not politically correct to say this, but....... (insert asinine derogatory comment here)". I often wish I could respond with "But you had to ****ing say it anyway, didn't you?" but there are CRM issues to contend with when you're at 39,000ft so it can be quite difficult to address it.

Yes this is a "minority" of pilots........ but in my opinion it's not a tiny insignificant one.

I'm actually a bit over it.

dr dre

5th Nov 2019, 07:40

I have flown with many of the senior female pilots too. All of them have been totally pleasant to fly with. The only pilot in Qantas I absolutely refuse to fly with is a male, and the only ones I see on the roster and roll my eyes thinking "hang in there - you don't have to socialise with them" are also male.

Yes this is a "minority" of pilots........ but in my opinion it's not a tiny insignificant one.

I'm actually a bit over it.

I think that comes under the "bullying" part of the report. 1 out of 10 pilots reported having been subjected to bullying. In reality it seems the number is higher. All over aviation we may label them as "idiots", "wankers", "difficult to fly with", but in reality they are workplace bullies.

I hope they have the capacity to understand THEY are the ones who are the target of this report. Either they change their behaviour, or under a new mentality they will have to seek alternative employment.

Rated De

5th Nov 2019, 09:12

A deliberate corporate policy to recruit based on gender will likely produce non-merit based appointment.

What a wonderful way for Little Napoleon to manufacture another crisis.
Sure beats running an airline.

Perhaps the more obvious problem is the 2000 pilots who did not reply, presumably majority male.
Are they too scared to speak up too?

carro

5th Nov 2019, 10:32

Australian political correctness at it's finest. Maybe male Pilot's need to identify as females to have a fair chance of acceptance - PC gender choice could be a positive! Then women who are concerned that they are paid less than their male counterparts can identify as men to get a nice little pay rise. If they ever get called in the office for pranging an aircraft, due to their lack of experience, they can convert back to women, for a minor slap on the wrists. :ugh:

nefarious1

5th Nov 2019, 10:42

I’ve never understood the relevance of genitalia when flying an aircraft.....is it something to do with the seat belts?

gordonfvckingramsay

5th Nov 2019, 17:54

Other tensions arise from the assumption that women on promotional lists are there for quota purposes; which infuriates those who got there on merit.

A regularly overlooked point here. I know several long standing female pilots who cringe at the thought that their gender is effectively devaluing their hard work and dedication. If women pilots really had any self respect they would reject the quota system and do it the old fashioned way.

Orange future

5th Nov 2019, 18:10

“I know girls that have came out of sims crying (some laughing) as they believe they‘ve just butchered every component of their sim...had their letter of offer a few weeks later.”

Indeed, and I know boys that have done exactly the same thing.

“The US BLS conducted a long term longitudinal study in the gender pay gap finding a small one existed.”

The BLS study found that on average women are paid about 20% less than men in the US. Small difference?

“The mind boggles as to the crewing arrangement should these pilots decide that they would also like children.”

Australia is a typical developed country, an aging population with a declining birth rate. It is an economic imperative for Australians to have more children.
Progressive countries have figured out that accommodating child birth within the labor market is not only morally prudent but economically mandatory.

“By definition, the alleged Qantas target for gender representation means that qualified male candidates will be passed over in favor of female candidates that meet threshold minimum requirements until such time as the target is deemed to be achieved.”

It doesn't mean this at all.

“She has complained about the level of entitlement of young women these days”

As apposed to the level of entitlement of men displayed here on this thread in a discussion about an industry staffed almost entirely by…..men?

The younger generation are all entitled, boys and girls alike.

“Thats probably true but in my experience a large percentage of women drop by the wayside over the span of the average career. Few seem to want to be 60 year old pilots.”

Several things about this comment. Firstly, perhaps you could provide some data to support this claim instead of just using your “experience”. And secondly……so what if women want to retire earlier than men. Hats off to them.

“those most loudly decrying these quotas are the old school female pilots.”

Just to be clear, QF do not use quotas in the employment process and have not indicated an intention to do so.

“I've had one pilot say to me with a straight face that female pilots shouldn't be rostered together because all they'll do is argue”

A rather laughable sentiment particularly in reference to Qantas.

Rated De

5th Nov 2019, 18:28

A regularly overlooked point here. I know several long standing female pilots who cringe at the thought that their gender is effectively devaluing their hard work and dedication. If women pilots really had any self respect they would reject the quota system and do it the old fashioned way.

That is probably very close to the mark.
People ought just get things on merit and there are plenty of people who do.

Crisis, drama, superlatives and manufactured diversion has long been a staple of the reign of Little Napoleon.

Hamley

5th Nov 2019, 18:59

The mind boggles as to the crewing arrangement should these pilots decide that they would also like children.

Mate what year are you living in? 1945??!

Arthur D

5th Nov 2019, 22:51

Hooray I say,

it’s about time the festering cocoon that shelters the bullying, egotistical narcissists that inhabit some QF cockpits is blown open.

It’s not just women who are abused, I’ve seen grown men in tears following a ‘debriefing’ session from some numbskull who insists on being called Captain or Skipper and believes that he is some sort or aviation god.

they are a small minority, but nevertheless prominent part of QF cockpit culture. Protected by Chief Pilots and normalised by most, they have survived too long.

watch for the quiet retirements.....

Capt Kremin

5th Nov 2019, 23:50

“Thats probably true but in my experience a large percentage of women drop by the wayside over the span of the average career. Few seem to want to be 60 year old pilots.”

Several things about this comment. Firstly, perhaps you could provide some data to support this claim instead of just using your “experience”. And secondly……so what if women want to retire earlier than men. Hats off to them.

“those most loudly decrying these quotas are the old school female pilots.”

Just to be clear, QF do not use quotas in the employment process and have not indicated an intention to do so.

A 20% recruitment "target" when the percentage of female CPL holders in Australia is low single digit, is a quota by any other name.

60% of the female pilots, from a smallish number, who joined ahead of me had voluntarily departed QF before the age of 50. Many below me ( and I cannot quote exact numbers) have done the same. I wasn't criticising their decision to leave, just noting it. I believe it's primarily a life balance thing. Good on them.

Gligg

6th Nov 2019, 00:40

As a male who's lost count of the number of sucker punches taken during the 'GA Journey' i think it's fair to say harassment is not just Gender based.

zanthrus

6th Nov 2019, 05:33

Forget these stupid quota ideas. Simply hire the best qualified person for the job. Easy.

Wizofoz

6th Nov 2019, 05:57

I'm sure harassments is real and unacceptable. Pilots are not exactly the most "woke" on average.

The bit that annoys me, however, is the remarks about pay inequity. Increasing the number of females employed means a higher percentage of the more junior- and thus lower pad- pilots are female. In other words, addressing past inequity leads to the APPERANCE, without decent analysis, of pay inequilty.

A senior female pilot gets paid the same as a senior male one. There are just fewer of them.

tbfka

6th Nov 2019, 07:10

The first intake at the academy in Toowoomba is 50% women, despite Qantas stating that around 15% of those who expressed interest were women. Does anyone really believe that 50% of those who went on to apply were women? Are the people at Qantas really that stupid that they think this won't cause tension between those who didn't receive this sort of special treatment and those who did?

V-Jet

6th Nov 2019, 07:17

A senior female pilot gets paid the same as a senior male one. There are just fewer of them.

But the senior female pilots are all in management. So they get paid more. Or is it lesbians that get paid more than females and males. Or lesbians getting paid more than gays getting paid more than straight females and straight males. Or lesbians getting paid more than gays getting more than cross dressers getting more than straight males and females??

It's very, very confusing for me. All I know is I'm not a lesbian so any Management position under the current regime is by default ruled out for me. In the past, such positions were based on the ability to do them, not which personal parts of myself I wished to place inside particular parts of someone else, but I have come to accept I am a dinosaur and almost extinct. Though not, I hasten to add, by failing to put the correct breeding part in the right sexual organ to procreate. I spent years of fruitful research giving that art a very red hot go.

The Chief Pilot with his penchant for car park and vehicular procreation platforms has, it must be admitted, publicly given the problem more of a red hot go than I have. I wonder if QF solved any potential harassment issue of that person by surrounding them with non gender specific personages lest they feel lustful urges in carparks again??

73qanda

6th Nov 2019, 08:26

The Chief Pilot with his penchant for car park and vehicular procreation platforms has, it must be admitted, publicly given the problem more of a red hot go than I have. I wonder if QF solved any potential harassment issue of that person by surrounding them with non gender specific personages lest they feel lustful urges in carparks again??
lol I have no idea what you’re talking about but it sounds like a classic aviation story.
My two cents on this..... good pilots have two things 1/ Attitude conducive to self improvement 2/ Processing power.
Thats it. If you’re keen to learn and you were born with a brain that can scan and process at a high rate then eventually you’ll do a good job skating down final at 190kts GS. ( I know there’s other things but these are the two most important IMO).
The ability to recall facts from long term memory is something that makes people look smart but it’s the short term memory that separates the aces from the also rans and that has little to do with education or gender.

Rated De

6th Nov 2019, 09:53

Wizofoz

6th Nov 2019, 14:20

And just in case some facts might help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcDrE5YvqTs

Many of the claims about a wage gap are exaggerated, but it's not as simple as that video suggests, either.

WHY are professions that are usually predominantly female paid less than those seen as mainly male? There was a time when there was a separate females' pay scale for the same job, so it's not surprising that valuable, qualified jobs, such as nursing, had low pay compared to a male dominated field like construction, and in times of collective bargaining and decreased Union clout, that has never been redressed.

parabellum

6th Nov 2019, 15:07

From my experience simulator assessments are all about demonstrating a positive learning curve, stuff up a manoeuvre but get it right the next time is a big plus compared to a mediocre display throughout. It doesn't matter if the candidate has flown the type before, their ability to quickly learn and improve is what matters.

oicur12.again

6th Nov 2019, 17:24

“And just in case some facts might help.”

Rated De,

Facts are great.

But do you really want to be forming an opinion based upon PragerU?

Do some research into Dennis Prager and his website, where it gets its funding, what its motivation is and more importantly how often it is debunked as being nothing more than a mouth piece for anti gay, anti abortion, climate change denying racist christian fundamentalists and the oil fracking industry with just enough half truths and a slick expensive production value to make it appear credible.

Then start sourcing your “facts” from real data.

Rated De

6th Nov 2019, 19:39

DutchRoll

6th Nov 2019, 21:24

If women pilots really had any self respect they would reject the quota system and do it the old fashioned way.

Right...... so you seem to have concluded that women pilots have no self respect, which pretty much by default makes you part of the problem here. Exactly how would they "reject the quota system"? Refuse refuse to apply for their dream job, just in case they only got an interview as part of a quota? Wait until they get their acceptance letter and write back threatening not to take the position unless HR disclose to them whether their acceptance was quota-driven (which by default will probably get them an "ok then have a nice life" letter)? Did you even put 30 nanoseconds of thought into that comment?

They do not bloody know if their acceptance was quota driven or not! I have actually sat in the freaking cockpit of a Qantas aircraft during the cruise and been told that exact thing by one of the girls. And it concerned her, understandably, what guys would assume of her mere "presence" in the company.

My response was to the effect of "well as far as I'm concerned you passed the same training course as I did so it's a bit of a moot point - and from the other side, if I sat up all night worrying myself about how certain blokes made it into the company through an imperfect recruitment process, I would never sleep".

ruprecht

6th Nov 2019, 22:11

They do not bloody know if their acceptance was quota driven or not!

I agree that the individual does not know if they have been recruited due to a quota, but someone in that group most certainly has. Recruiting to a quota is discrimination, no matter how you spin it.

I would have thought a woke company like Qantas would be aware of that... :rolleyes:

patty50

6th Nov 2019, 23:25

A regularly overlooked point here. I know several long standing female pilots who cringe at the thought that their gender is effectively devaluing their hard work and dedication. If women pilots really had any self respect they would reject the quota system and do it the old fashioned way.

Why should the new ones care? Most people will gladly be a beneficiary of an “unfair” advantage anytime one arises. Does the bloke whose dad is a pilot, owns a plane and got his license for free at 17 have any self respect?

Sucks for the older women who cop it both ways, worked hard to get there and now get the downside of everyone seeing them as token females.

Capt Kremin

6th Nov 2019, 23:25

Slightly off topic but the claim that male and female pilots are paid the same, is only true for equal work. As a small example if you look at the most senior female pilots on the QF list you can state that they are paid the same as other pilots on the same type, but over a career have been paid less than the cohort they joined with due to opting to remain senior on type, rather than taking the promotions to higher paid aircraft that their cohorts generally elected to do.

This is a recurring theme for all the QF aircraft and positions that still operate a pure seniority list. Some have taken demotions off the 737 back to SO for the same reasons. (So have some men). It always struck me during my QF career as to the dearth of female pilots on promotional lists. Seniority on type and lifestyle control seems paramount.

However I had a very interesting conversation with a female SO who was married to another QF pilot who expressed frustration at the expectation that, when children would eventually come along, why was it her career that was expected to take the hit? She had a point.

Always when there are competing interests and rights, there will be conflict. Many male pilots express frustration at how the advent of carer's line mean they do reserve work far more frequently than in the past; to the detriment of their family life. QF isn't going to increase the pilot establishment to compensate for that.

The QF contract did not have any acknowledgement of female pilots at all until the mid-90's when the evident pregnancies of some of the earliest female pilots forced the issue. Seems hard to believe in hindsight.

Dookie on Drums

6th Nov 2019, 23:46

https://youtu.be/-pdnkbs4l_g

Icarus2001

7th Nov 2019, 01:37

However I had a very interesting conversation with a female SO who was married to another QF pilot who expressed frustration at the expectation that, when children would eventually come along, why was it her career that was expected to take the hit? She had a point. Perhaps the fact that nature has burdened her with the ability to have children and then feed that child with her own body. Maybe not.

Wizofoz

7th Nov 2019, 01:39

The BLS data referenced is fact.Prager U, with its puff actually borrowed the methodology from the BLS. That US Government report concluded a small wage gap too. As did a EU study, nothing of the magnitude that some elements of the media push either.
It took the data from those sources. It's conclusions and emphasis are 100% ideology.

Like I said, the topic is complex, and overt-stated by people of an OPPOSITE ideology, but the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Wizofoz

7th Nov 2019, 01:43

Perhaps the fact that nature has burdened her with the ability to have children and then feed that child with her own body. Maybe not.

But a Male has voluntarily agreed to become an equal parent.

Dookie on Drums

7th Nov 2019, 02:21

Oh please. As an FO I've been burdened by the pressure of a female Captain. I am sure I am not alone

Gnadenburg

7th Nov 2019, 03:22

At the later stage of my career I certainly welcome more motivated young ladies into the profession. But anything QF does, certainly makes you cringe, with their expedience on some social issues of the day, whilst they ignore others. Noted some of the Machiavellian industrial conspiracies as to why you would want such a high number of females, though one issue with ladies I've noted over the years is a low rate of union participation.

In my day I loathed nepotism. Certainly hope no Daddy's boys are bemoaning affirmative action in the later stages of their career !

Icarus2001

7th Nov 2019, 03:36

and tell me how many men you know who had the majority of child care after that? Neither of us would know the answer to that but we can assume a small number. Isn't it up to the individual couple to make decisions? First of all to decide to have children and then to decide who will stay home (if anyone) to look after it/them. The woman will be out of action for the best part of twelve months for childbirth, that is simply an inconvenient fact of nature.
Interesting comment though, "why was it her career that was expected to take the hit? ". Well who said that it is? That is between her and her partner surely?

I have seen both extremes. Women who leave work to have their baby and cannot get back to work quick enough, leaving their offspring in the care of a professional organisation not family. Then there are those that never come back because they love motherhood. Surely it is their choice? Some seem to be suggesting you can be in two places at once.

oicur12.again

7th Nov 2019, 03:48

“Prager U, with its puff actually borrowed the methodology from the BLS.”

No, Prager have been very misleading with the findings of the BLS and painted a very inaccurate picture.

They do it all the time and in this case with the help of the American Enterprise Institute, those wonderful folk who managed to assist the Bush administration into lying its way into the Iraq war.

As for the argument about the gender pay gap, it doesn’t really apply to employees such as pilots who work under a collective pay system.

But it certainly applies to managers who sing for their supper.

Sunfish

7th Nov 2019, 04:21

Child care for men means supporting children well into their twenties. Wiping backsides for a few years is trivial.

Wizofoz

7th Nov 2019, 04:25

Child care for men means supporting children well into their twenties. Wiping backsides for a few years is trivial.

So, Women don't financially contribute to their children? That really is a stupid statement , Sunny.

DutchRoll

7th Nov 2019, 04:49

I agree that the individual does not know if they have been recruited due to a quota, but someone in that group most certainly has. Recruiting to a quota is discrimination, no matter how you spin it.

I would have thought a woke company like Qantas would be aware of that... :rolleyes:
The fact that "someone" would know is irrelevant to the original comment. The comment implied that it is the female pilot recruits who are the problem, the female pilot recruits who have no self respect, and the female pilot recruits who have all the power to magically detect if they were part of a recruitment quota or not, and wave their arms in the air to make it stop. All of which is complete nonsense.

In a 30 year aviation career I've not yet felt the inclination while flying with one of the girls (including very recent recruits) to grab the fork off the crew meal tray and stab myself in the eyeball just to end the misery of having to listen to them ramble on about politics, how great they are at flying, how much more of an expert they are than people who actually have accredited expertise on a given topic, or how many of the opposite sex they've slept with recently. Regrettably when flying with male colleagues, my eyeballs are often at risk. And that's all aside from the fact that I've seen no quantifiable difference in flying standards - after all, they do ultimately pass the same course, irrespective of how they ended up with a position on it.

I just think we guys could show a tiny bit of decency by not automatically assuming that any given new female recruit has used some sort of sneaky nefarious means to get where she is, and that if she passed the course and is released to the line as a new QF long haul pilot, then maybe, just maybe, she actually met the required standard and we can afford her the same level of respect as the guys who passed that same course. Alas, this is becoming far too much to ask for some of my male brethren and disparaging off-the-cuff remarks are becoming par for the course for some of them. It's almost like they actually think these girls have stolen their manhood or something.

Lookleft

7th Nov 2019, 05:13

In a 30 year aviation career I've not yet felt the inclination while flying with one of the girls (including very recent recruits) to grab the fork off the crew meal tray and stab myself in the eyeball just to end the misery of having to listen to them ramble on about politics, how great they are at flying, how much more of an expert they are than people who actually have accredited expertise on a given topic, or how many of the opposite sex they've slept with recently. Regrettably when flying with male colleagues, my eyeballs are often at risk. And that's all aside from the fact that I've seen no quantifiable difference in flying standards - after all, they do ultimately pass the same course, irrespective of how they ended up with a position on it.

Couldn't have put it better. I have been instructed by female pilots, I have instructed female pilots, I have flown with female captains, I have flown with female F/O's. No difference at all in how the job is done but a very big difference in the level of conversation and the topics covered!

If the airlines want to attract more females into piloting jobs then make it more family friendly and we can all benefit.

ruprecht

7th Nov 2019, 06:37

The fact that "someone" would know is irrelevant to the original comment

You should re-read what I wrote.

No individual knows whether the quota affected them, but clearly some are there due to a quota, and some others also missed out due to not being the correct gender. No-one knows who it is, and they never will. Does it matter? Probably not.

I just think that when you start veering away from “best person for the job” and start recruiting based on “social responsibility”, you’re opening a can of worms. Imagine if Qantas said “we need to recruit more Catholics...”

Now, for the record, I see no difference between male and female pilots in terms of ability. Of those that I have flown with, some were great, most were good, and some were ****e: just like the blokes. If we want more female pilots we should be actively encouraging them to become pilots so that they make up a greater percentage of applicants for a job, not just recruiting a greater number from a low percentage of applicants.

PS why would you stab your own eye. If you stab the captain we all get a promotion... :)

josephfeatherweight

7th Nov 2019, 09:22

Imagine if Qantas said “we need to recruit more Catholics...
Unlikely given AJ’s predilections...

Airbubba

7th Nov 2019, 17:09

After checking most of the other diversity boxes for decades in the U.S. the new progressive workplace campaign is for 'neurodiversity' i.e. recruiting folks with mental disorders. No, I'm not joking.

It's only a matter of time before corporate quotas for neurodiversity clash with medical requirements in pilot hiring in the socially engineered airline workplace.

From an article in today's news feed:

Designing a truly inclusive workplace is a messy task.

Heightened awareness of neurodiversity —an umbrella term that refers to the breadth of human neurocognitive functioning—has made that project more complex and all the more urgent.

Companies like SAP (https://news.sap.com/2019/11/sap-partners-encourage-workplace-neurodiversity/), JPMorgan Chase (https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/news/stories/neurodiverse-hiring-brings-social-and-business-benefits.htm), Goldman Sachs (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/business/goldman-sachs-autism-neurodiversity/index.html), and Microsoft (https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/topic/neurodiversity/) attest to the advantages of hiring workers diagnosed with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, Tourette’s syndrome, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. In proven cases, neurodivergent employees tend to have terrific capacity for creative problem-solving and greater attention to detail.

https://qz.com/work/1741745/how-to-design-an-office-that-champions-neurodiversity/

Sprite

7th Nov 2019, 18:33

There is no quota, there is a target. Recruitment decisions are based on de identified data. Perhaps the fact that a slightly higher percentage of female candidates are coming through then that currently training means they are stronger candidates?

Many current female pilots are mentoring those studying , actively visiting schools and encouraging girls. Perhaps that explains the increase also?

Leaving the dinosaurs’ comments aside (“men work, women have babies so they can’t possibly contribute equally” 😒 ) It’s great to read comments from those who’ve stood up to defend the rational perspective and try to talk some sense in to the vocal minority.

Given the lack of competition from motivated women at the time they got their jobs, it’s likely some of those minority wouldn’t have met the standard had their been the same number of women applying as today. I suspect deep down they know it.

Jetstarpilot

7th Nov 2019, 19:05

But what about quota for wimmin honey cart drivers!!

didnt tink so👎👎👎👎🤯🤯😡😡😡😡😡😡😡🍆🍆🍆🍆🍅💦

73qanda

7th Nov 2019, 19:07

Recruitment decisions are based on de identified data.
Not true. Did you make it up or did you just believe what someone else told you?

Orange future

7th Nov 2019, 19:20

“A 20% recruitment "target" when the percentage of female CPL holders in Australia is low single digit, is a quota by any other name.”

No, its a target, a lofty one at that which the CEO has acknowledged is optimistic.

Many here misunderstand how QF propose to narrow the gender gap At no point have they had quotas and at no point have they proposed them.

Remember, the aim here for Qantas and any other airline on the planet is to alleviate the unfolding pilot shortage and a quota will not achieve this.

In fact, in the present market, a quota would undermine this aim.

The motivation is to expand the talent pool from which to draw from, not to prioritize women over men from the present lop sided pool of applicants.

How Qantas intends to grow the female side of the pool is anyones guess however I suspect they are coming to the same conclusion as other (most) airlines are that the biggest obstacle is the complete lack of visible female role models.

I dont know how far Qantas has progressed down the path in solving this however many airlines have become active in sending female pilots out to schools to discuss the career as an option with kids and to demonstrate that women can and do occupy pilot eats in airliners.

Others methods are being employed upstream to encourage women to participate in the industry and much has been written on the subject.

A quick scan of the internet reveals many articles on the subject of how airlines the world over are coming to the conclusion that increasing the participation of women and minorities is key to solving the shrinking pilot applicant pool.

“Forget these stupid quota ideas. Simply hire the best qualified person for the job.”

Correct, by increasing the participation rate of women airlines are growing the talent pool which makes it easier to hire the best qualified person for the job.

Previously when the industry was 100% male dominated, often the best person for the job was not permitted to even apply and thus the system discriminated in favor of men.

Sprite

7th Nov 2019, 19:57

Not true. Did you make it up or did you just believe what someone else told you?

Sigh. It certainly is true. Or did you make it up or believe what someone else told you?

Slippery_Pete

7th Nov 2019, 20:11

Rated De

7th Nov 2019, 20:14

Do Qantas have a 20% target for female LAME recruitment - no.

Do Qantas have a target for more equality in check-in jobs where men are under-represented - no.

This is simply political agenda pushing and free PR - because if it were ACTUALLY about equality, the answer to the above questions would be yes.

You can’t fix discrimination by discriminating.

Eloquently said Pete.
It is what QF has become: A vehicle for social discourse, selling gym memberships and car insurance, with the odd manufactured crisis to make Little Napoleon seem big.

73qanda

7th Nov 2019, 21:04

Sigh. It certainly is true. Or did you make it up or believe what someone else told you?
Neither. I observed it.
CV photos, names, gender, Nationalities, hobbies, sports records, school records etc . Reference checks to determine ‘fit’ and ‘suitability’. In my opinion the process of recruitment is centred around someone’s identity.

cloudsurfng

7th Nov 2019, 21:35

Initially, the recruitment data was not de identified. The recruiters saw applicants of a certain gender being offered positions when they had ranked lower in the process. (This was only a small number). The pilot responsible for the recruiting data made some change that completely de identified the applicants. Shortly after, said pilot was told by HR to de-deidentify 🤯 applicants so that ‘targets’ could be met.

From my experience so far after 18 years in QF, until recently I’ve never flown with a female pilot I didn’t like, or didn’t get along with, and every single one of them deserved their position based on personality, knowledge and skill. Unfortunately, there are 1 or 2 new joiners that have taken it upon themselves to champion women’s rights to such a level that you do sometimes prefer not to speak at all in case you inadvertently say something which someone may find offensive. This is the absolute minority of people. In 18 years, as someone said above, with male counterparts I’ve often considered poking both eyes out with a blunt plastic fork.

moral of the story.....no one will get along with everyone...regardless of gender. So how about we just assume that everyone who got in did so based on merit. It’s easier. Sure, at times throughout QF’s long history, there are people who got in when ranked well down the list of applicants. How can you be so certain you weren’t one of them?

Gligg

7th Nov 2019, 23:09

Can we do away with this 'shrinking talent pool' boloney? QF hand out the 'thanks but no thanks' to a large number of applicants with solid experience, pre interview/sim, each hiring round. You'd think they were in the same boat as Queensland farmers going by the press releases.
Everyone gets that it's very competitive, so let's leave it at that.

Ascend Charlie

7th Nov 2019, 23:58

In the HR office of A Major Airline were 3 female pilots vying for one slot, and all have proven to be equal up till now. The HR genius decides to ask a question, as the Senior Recruiter looks on:
"What is one and one?"

First girl: "Two."

Second girl: 'Eleven."

Third girl: "It can be anything you want it to be."

The girls leave, and the HR genius talks to the Senior Recruiter.
"The first girl is straight-forward, says "two" and that is the straight-up answer. No mucking about.
The second girl is a lateral thinker, put the two ones side by side and you have eleven. Could be a really good problem-solver.
The third girl has a free-flowing thought pattern, you can use any method to get the problem solved.
Which one would you hire?"

Senior Recruiter: "The one with the big t**s".

Gligg

8th Nov 2019, 00:00

’said pilot was told by HR to de-deidentify �� applicants so that ‘targets’ could be met’

In other words, HR rendering the recruitment role obsolete?

Orange future

8th Nov 2019, 00:17

“Do Qantas have a 20% target for female LAME recruitment - no.”

Not sure about the actual target but yes they have been actively trying to up the participation rate of women in the engineering field.

The Full Monty

8th Nov 2019, 00:36

Over the years, I have shared flight decks with the former Qantas Chairman's son, at least three different Chief Pilot's son's, sons and daughters of Senior Check Captains, sons and daughters of the 1990's Manager Pilot Recruitment (I think 3 are in the airline), a Director's love child, two son's of a Duty Dispatch Manager and so it goes on.

One or two, I would describe their flying as "agricultural" however they all passed initial training, all made it passed S/O to F/O and a lot are Captains now days.

Did some type of "positive" discrimination get all of these people onto an assessment day? Who knows.

Did they all have to stand on their own once in for assessment, and jump through the process like I did? Yes...

Do they hold their own as pilots? Largely, yes.

I don't see a lot of difference between that in the past and some type of weighting to increase the throughput of females in the assessment process - but they have to hold their own from there.

I'm on a type that gets a lot of the new recruits and my right seat usually changes soon into the flight with one of the two S/O's and I have found thus far the new recruits regardless of gender to be of a very high quality and standard.

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 01:17

But what about quota for wimmin honey cart drivers!!

didnt tink so��

Intellectual genuis! Women have been lifes **** cart driver for a millennium.

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 01:31

I have seen both extremes. Women who leave work to have their baby and cannot get back to work quick enough, leaving their offspring in the care of a professional organisation not family. Then there are those that never come back because they love motherhood. Surely it is their choice? Some seem to be suggesting you can be in two places at once.

lololololol. Like I said , you can't make this **** up! You automatically slam the woman, what, the father had no say, he couldn't take unpaid leave and do the childcare? You prove my point Icarus, you automatically assume the woman is responsible for parenting and the man isn't, and that's the issue and it's wide spread throughout the community, women are EXPECTED to do it all and if they have children they are accused of "wanting it all'!

mmmbop

8th Nov 2019, 01:44

To the idiot who complained that quotas were discriminatory, guess what, that's what females have faced since forever.

Cool. So now let's do to men what happened to women and that will set the world straight. :ugh:

Quotas are bs. They have been around in government departments since the 70/80s and have only become worse with time, with many incompetent people becoming Head of a Department due to their gender. Now we have them in a safety related career where the best person for the role should be employed, not the person who has the correct gender. I couldn't care less if that means that male to female ratio is 80:20 or 20: 80, this is about people getting the role because they are talented and right for it, not because they are male and female.

Icarus2001

8th Nov 2019, 01:49

lololololol. Like I said , you can't make this **** up! You automatically slam the woman, what, the father had no say...

Where did I slam the woman? Which words?

I said it was the choice of the COUPLE!

Read it again genius.

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 02:14

Where did I slam the woman? Which words?

I said it was the choice of the COUPLE!

Read it again genius.

Icarus, the Tone Deaf pilot! Choice, what sort of stupid comment is that? Women, as the stats show, Have.No.Choice, or maybe, they're just really accommodating people, that they do nearly all the heavy lifting. Dumb or what!

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 02:18

Cool. So now let's do to men what happened to women and that will set the world straight. :ugh:

Quotas are bs. They have been around in government departments since the 70/80s and have only become worse with time, with many incompetent people becoming Head of a Department due to their gender. Now we have them in a safety related career where the best person for the role should be employed, not the person who has the correct gender. I couldn't care less if that means that male to female ratio is 80:20 or 20: 80, this is about people getting the role because they are talented and right for it, not because they are male and female.

Here we go, you post one dumb comment after another! Unless women are incompetent they will easily make the cut. I also think you over estimate what's required for the role, most likely poor self-esteem. The numbers game is to get more into the field over a faster time frame without affecting standards.

Orange future

8th Nov 2019, 02:48

“Quotas are bs”

Maybe they have merit in some fields in some situations but for the topic at hand, yes they are BS.

Which is why Qantas have not used them nor have they indicated an intention to do so in the future.

“where the best person for the role should be employed”

And the best way to employ the best person is to cast the widest net possible, which is what Qantas are trying to do by increasing the participation rate of women.

A question for you, back in the days when piloting in Australia (one of the most knuckle dragging nations in this regard) was 100% exclusively male, do you think planes were being crewed by the “best person”?

AviationReviewWA

8th Nov 2019, 03:11

Here we go, you post one dumb comment after another! Unless women are incompetent they will easily make the cut. I also think you over estimate what's required for the role, most likely poor self-esteem. The numbers game is to get more into the field over a faster time frame without affecting standards.
How is that a dumb comment? So you think the best candidate for the job shouldn't be chosen, regardless of gender?

Orange future

8th Nov 2019, 03:13

“who actually holds the correct qualification for the job in the first instance.”

Not answering the question at all.

josephfeatherweight

8th Nov 2019, 05:53

How come in 99% of cases it's the woman whose career goes on hold, how come in 99% of cases it's the woman who continues to do the bulk of the housework while also working?
In a thread full of made-up, BS statistics, this is one of the bigger piles of manure I've read. Not the case in my household or in 76.8% of my colleagues' households.

bulldog89

8th Nov 2019, 06:06

Any announcement of gender parity in the cabin crew ranks? In the hangar? Check in staff? Bag loaders? ...

Oh no, please no!
Gender parity is only for professions wanted by women and only if they're the minority.
Call it "selective parity"...

Rated De

8th Nov 2019, 06:13

Oh no, please no!
Gender parity is only for professions wanted by women and only if they're the minority.
Call it "selective parity"...

When will men get XX weeks paid maternity leave?

Stickshift3000

8th Nov 2019, 06:26

When will men get XX weeks paid maternity leave?

Will never happen - as long as that man is not the child’s mother...

Paternity leave, on the other hand, is worth seeking equal rights for!

Global Aviator

8th Nov 2019, 06:32

Is paternity leave not available now?

Can of worms this entire topic.

Best human for the job, no problemo, however it’s not how it works. For eternity ones connections or whatever’s gets them through the door, then it is up to the individual to produce the goods. No self respecting trainer, examiner will pass anyone unless you meet the standard (ok there will be minor exceptions as in everything in life). Is it fair? However if you were on the side that got the leg up, what would you do? Take the moral high ground or???

Now tell me on here, how many of you got that first break due to connections of some sort? I will admit my first break NO but certainly my second and third got me speaking to the right people.

The world is a forever evolving place..........

AviationReviewWA

8th Nov 2019, 06:56

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 07:18

Since when in the past was it best person for the job? Oh, you all mean Best Man for the job!

In the past the industry was able to cut out over 50% of the pop (women) when it came to selecting pilots and the number of holes in the ground was what it was, did people go around screaming that we weren't selecting the best person for the job, did they, or have I missed something? So, how will that change when you choose to include women.

And for the intellectually challenged who keep going on about gender parity driving the **** cart etc, I'm sure women would LOVE that, it would mean an automatic improvement in their life as it would mean better pay and better jobs and they are OVER represented in all those ****ty job areas.

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 07:25

In a thread full of made-up, BS statistics, this is one of the bigger piles of manure I've read. Not the case in my household or in 76.8% of my colleagues' households.

Your seriously deluded or an outright liar, your pick!

I would say less than 10% of men I know do anywhere near equal to what women do. Not only is it my experience, but it's what survey after survey confirms.

exfocx

8th Nov 2019, 07:27

A question for you, back in the days when piloting in Australia (one of the most knuckle dragging nations in this regard) was 100% exclusively male, do you think planes were being crewed by the “best person”?

Apologies, missed this before I posted.

josephfeatherweight

8th Nov 2019, 07:45

Your seriously deluded or an outright liar, your pick!
*You're
I would say less than 10% of men I know do anywhere near equal to what women do. Not only is it my experience, but it's what survey after survey confirms.
Show me these "surveys" that say 99% as per your "statistics". You lost me with "I would say"...

Daddy Fantastic

8th Nov 2019, 07:48

lololololol. Like I said , you can't make this **** up! You automatically slam the woman, what, the father had no say, he couldn't take unpaid leave and do the childcare? You prove my point Icarus, you automatically assume the woman is responsible for parenting and the man isn't, and that's the issue and it's wide spread throughout the community, women are EXPECTED to do it all and if they have children they are accused of "wanting it all'!

Well they do want it all and won’t listen to reason. Babies need their mother after birth. It’s very selfish to expect the baby to be happy at daycare. Men can’t breastfeed, women can. That’s nature in action. They have been doing it for thousands of years.

So if you want to be a mother be a responsible mother and look after the child the way nature intended. Let the man go out and work and be protector of his family.

To those women who choose not to have families, good for you if you want to be a professional pilot but then you earn it on merit, no quotas or AA to help you along and discriminate against men, especially if at your assessment the men did a better job than you.

Daddy Fantastic

8th Nov 2019, 07:53

Icarus, the Tone Deaf pilot! Choice, what sort of stupid comment is that? Women, as the stats show, Have.No.Choice, or maybe, they're just really accommodating people, that they do nearly all the heavy lifting. Dumb or what!

Too hell with being TONE DEAF. I don’t care if that offends you, PC has ruined the planet. Freedom of speech includes offending, you dont like it then best you stay home and cook so not to be offended by society or people’s thoughts and expressions.

Grow up...if you can’t off to your little safe space you go!

John Citizen

8th Nov 2019, 08:17

Daddy fantastic...

I agree 100%

Sunfish

8th Nov 2019, 08:32

Cutting out the emotional BS, there is one real problem that concerns me....

That is the confidential memo to managers requiring a justification report to senior management if a female pilot is recommended for disciplinary action, downgrading, failure to perform other adverse findings or termination.

THAT is the dangerous and expensive side to “quotas”, not the recruitment side.

It costs lots of money to bribe anyone but white males into accepting job loss for non performance because you have, as a manager, to guard against discrimination lawsuits. That is, of course, if you can convince senior management whose kpi’s include “diversity” that you have a non performing member of a protected species in the first place.

To put that another way, you will know you are operating an unbiased system when failure rates are equal.

AviationReviewWA

8th Nov 2019, 08:45

Yes there was discrimination in the past, but that doesn't mean there needs to be 'revenge' and discriminate the other way now. Should just learn from our mistakes and hire based on ability, because there is no questioning that hiring based on a quota is discrimination. If you don't agree with that then I guess you are not for equality but rather for vengeance. Personally couldn't care less about someone's gender as long as they are a nice person and good at their job.

NFPAR

8th Nov 2019, 09:17

By definition, the alleged Qantas target for gender representation means that qualified male candidates will be passed over in favor of female candidates that meet threshold minimum requirements until such time as the target is deemed to be achieved. Basic maths.

That means also by definition that males with equal or higher skill levels than women will be rejected.

I do wonder how much this is going on in reality though.

I am female, work at QANTAS and have a degree in aviation. I also hold a PPL and have lots of volunteer work in aviation. The application specifically asks about volunteering, studying, etc.

Got rejected for the cadetship on the first stage. All the successful applicants (male and female) had less flying experience than me. They want ab initio pilots.

So whilst there is a big push for female pilots, it really do see to be exaggerated here: eg it common to see in the recruiting threads claims that being female is “guarantee” for a pilot spot. The cadetship is the lowest skilled entry point for their pilots so if they’re going to ignore qualifications in favour of gender wouldn’t they start at the easiest level?

As for the sexual harassment thing: in my experience sexual harassment appears to be commonplace in aviation. I’ve see it in other areas like air traffic control, and even at the local aero club. I personally found that it was older men who would insist on calling every woman “girly” or “darling” who were the worst perpetrators. I can’t think of anytime I had a problem with a younger person.

Clare Prop

8th Nov 2019, 10:41

Sprite

8th Nov 2019, 11:17

Hear hear.

As a long standing female pilot...rubbish. I wholeheartedly agree with targets and the fact that we are pulling together to encourage more female applicants to these positions. I care about the best person for the job and I believe in the past there has been a shortage of good applicants because females have been encouraged by society not to train as pilots. It is different now. We will not be bullied any more.

There are no quotas. Recruitment data is de identified for the final decision. So sorry (not) it is hard to accept that the higher rate of female pilot recruitment means that the female applicants are doing better in assessment...and that those who are protesting are most likely those who would not have got a job had there been more competition from female candidates.

The name is Porter

8th Nov 2019, 11:22

You know what really ****s me about male dominated work places? That they are male dominated.

Chronic Snoozer

8th Nov 2019, 11:49

I've worked with and trained female pilots. They are just like male pilots, some great, some not so great. I really don't understand what housework has to do with it.

Chronic Snoozer

8th Nov 2019, 11:58

Too hell with being TONE DEAF. I don’t care if that offends you, PC has ruined the planet. Freedom of speech includes offending, you dont like it then best.....

...you develop ways of dealing with a world that cannot agree with you 100% of the time. Being offended doesn't make you right. But it will make you feel entitled. I recommend choosing not to be offended at the drop of a hat.

Traffic_Is_Er_Was

8th Nov 2019, 12:00

What century were you born in to assume that women make the better parent, what science do you base that on?
Our legal system certainly seems to have that opinion.

73qanda

8th Nov 2019, 12:25

Orange future

8th Nov 2019, 16:32

“So if you want to be a mother be a responsible mother and look after the child the way nature intended.”

I am really unclear as to why we are even discussing the whole childbirth issue here (despite the fact that it was central to Ansett’s argument when trying to prevent women from flying).

My wife was a professional her entire life and raised 2 kids. Of the 40 years spent working she was off work for childbirth and breast feeding for probably less than a year in total.

“good for you if you want to be a professional pilot but then you earn it on merit, no quotas”

Which is precisely what is happening. There are NO quotas and have never been quotas to favor women in Qantas or any airline in Australia, which is why females still only occupy about 5% of the cockpit seats available.

The only quota system I am aware of was the one that ensured only men could fly airliners, a system that makes a complete mockery of the “best person for the job” argument so commonly regurgitated on this thread.

“I am very grateful that I live in a country where we are so heavily influenced by our predominantly Christian history and our hard won democratic freedoms”

You are aware that Australia graduated its first female fighter pilots in the military only 12 months ago and only as a result of a condemning report by the Human Rights Commission?

There have been females flying fighters in other countries including several muslim countries for over 80 years.

Australia has been beaten by Pakistan, India, China, Turkey just to name a few. America and the UK are an entire generation ahead of Australia.

73qanda

8th Nov 2019, 18:22

You are aware that Australia graduated its first female fighter pilots in the military only 12 months ago and only as a result of a condemning report by the Human Rights Commission?

There have been females flying fighters in other countries including several muslim countries for over 80 years.

Australia has been beaten by Pakistan, India, China, Turkey just to name a few. America and the UK are an entire generation ahead of Australia.
Lol hands up all the women wanting to trade their Australian rights for those in Pakistan, India, China or Turkey?
Shout out to the USA and the UK for helping us maintain our democratic freedoms which allows us to advance the rights of women and minorities to create a fairer society.

Sunfish

8th Nov 2019, 18:44

NFPAR, good on you! Regarding harassment, my experience as a manager was the. opposite of yours; older guys were well behaved because they knew the employment consequences of a harassment allegation - in business an allegation is enough to get you fired. It was the young twenty/thirty somethings I had to counsel, they often thought they were just being funny.

What concerns me, as I have said (and witnessed) is having double standards not for hiring, but for retention.

Wizofoz

8th Nov 2019, 18:54

Can we drift the thread away from housework and towards politics? I just want to point out how lucky some of us are to be in democratic western nations. Many would see this as a good problem to have. Under different political and religious systems , in many countries, in 2019, women are not educated to the same level as men and don’t have the same opportunities to make choices like “ shall I train to become a pilot or not”. I am very grateful that I live in a country where we are so heavily influenced by our predominantly Christian history and our hard won democratic freedoms.....and I’m not religious. Big ups to our terrible system that is better than all the rest and thank you to my grandmothers generation for their sacrifices circa seventy years ago.

But this was the case in Australia until very recently. Girls' used to not be allowed to do many subjects at school and courses at Uni that boys were, and there was a huge cultural bias toward many that they theoretically could- only a tiny percentage of doctors and lawyers, and effectively ZERO tradespeople used to be female, as an example.Many third world countries were actually way ahead of us as far as Female empowerment was concerned- India had it's first female prime minister before we had our first female airline pilot, and Pakistan before we would allow females to fly in the RAAF!

Your Grandmother would have been barred from many professions and on a different pay scale to men for most she COULD do.

We have come a long way- it would be foolish to think we are finished redressing injustices of the past.

Chiefttp

8th Nov 2019, 20:39

Thats probably true but in my experience a large percentage of women drop by the wayside over the span of the average career. Few seem to want to be 60 year old pilots.

This is what I observed in my career 34 years. Women tend to leave the job after “the fun wears off” also I notice a much higher percentage of women do not upgrade to Captain and are content to be professional F/O’s. I fly for a US carrier

mikewil

8th Nov 2019, 21:17

Which is precisely what is happening. There are NO quotas and have never been quotas to favor women in Qantas or any airline in Australia

Yeah that's why when you look at the cadet classes at Virgin and Qantas, you see a 50/50 split, when the applicant ratio wouldn't be anything of the sort :rolleyes:

oicur12.again

8th Nov 2019, 21:21

“Women tend to leave the job after the fun wears off”

I suspect this may be the case to a certain extent although all of the women I have worked with in the past 30 years are still flying to the best of my knowledge.

In my experience in the industry, many many of my male pilot friends would love to no longer be flying but are type cast in the role and have no option but to keep flying. The fun has worn off however there is no plan B and many of my mates feel trapped by the golden handcuffs.

The vast majority of these male friends lack a partner that has the professional qualifications to be earning a salary that will permit these guys to quit and maintain the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.

Many of my male friends who fly have partners that dont work at all.

The few women I know in the industry have partners who earn as much or more and can provide for the family were the wife to leave the job. I actually know of no women pilots whose partner does not work.

AviationReviewWA

8th Nov 2019, 22:50

I'm not sure if they are quotas, but the cadetships definitely have recruitment goals in terms of gender and this in itself is discrimination as there shouldn't be any favouring due to ones gender.

dr dre

8th Nov 2019, 22:53

Lol hands up all the women wanting to trade their Australian rights for those in Pakistan, India, China or Turkey?

You’ve totally misrepresented that post. No one is calling for the rights and status of women in Australia to be watered down to those of a third world country (Notwithstanding the fact Pakistan, India and Turkey had elected female PM’s earlier than Australia too).

But if countries in which the status of women is less than men have been able to integrate women better into flying roles before Australia, which supposedly has more gender equality, maybe it does say something about how our specific attitudes in Australian Aviation have developed over time?

For instance (genuine question as I’m not sure) was there any other nation in the late 70’s that was fighting court battles to keep females out of airline flight decks?

And it’s surprising to learn which nation has the highest number of female airline pilots? It’s not one that is renowned for gender equality:

Women airline pilots: The country with the most female pilots will surprise you (https://www.afr.com/world/asia/women-airline-pilots-the-country-with-the-most-female-pilots-will-surprise-you-20180912-h159p5)

Chronic Snoozer

9th Nov 2019, 01:07

You’ve totally misrepresented that post. No one is calling for the rights and status of women in Australia to be watered down to those of a third world country (Notwithstanding the fact Pakistan, India and Turkey had elected female PM’s earlier than Australia too).

But if countries in which the status of women is less than men have been able to integrate women better into flying roles before Australia, which supposedly has more gender equality, maybe it does say something about how our specific attitudes in Australian Aviation have developed over time?

For instance (genuine question as I’m not sure) was there any other nation in the late 70’s that was fighting court battles to keep females out of airline flight decks?

And it’s surprising to learn which nation has the highest number of female airline pilots? It’s not one that is renowned for gender equality:

Women airline pilots: The country with the most female pilots will surprise you (https://www.afr.com/world/asia/women-airline-pilots-the-country-with-the-most-female-pilots-will-surprise-you-20180912-h159p5)
Behind a pay wall.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x1028/https_blogs_images_forbes_com_bishopjordan_files_2018_09_fem ale_pilots_dc096f6e4e979298e5de86b021cb574cbd8941af.jpg
Sourced from Forbes.

Surely, there's room for a few more.

exfocx

9th Nov 2019, 01:32

Our legal system certainly seems to have that opinion.

Absolute crap,

exfocx

9th Nov 2019, 01:41

This is what I observed in my career 34 years. Women tend to leave the job after “the fun wears off” also I notice a much higher percentage of women do not upgrade to Captain and are content to be professional F/O’s. I fly for a US carrier

Hahahahahahaha, after the fun wears off, what a bloody joke. The only people who think flying as a career is HARD work are pilots. I'm getting close to 40 yrs in and it's the best non-working job ever, even GA. You compare an airline captains pay to other professional areas and then compare the workload, no bloody comparison. We S/Off and go home and think nothing of work until the next S/on, see how that is for any other professional on that pay level. Then ask what the response would be if you said "Nah, not changing my schedule as I'm busy" lolololololol. We have it pretty bloody good, all things considered.

exfocx

9th Nov 2019, 01:47

If one employs people of a particular demographic who meet 'min standard' instead of the best person for the job then that will inevitably and irrefutably affect standards.

No, not correct!

I think you're confusing standards with averages! A standard is a minimum level of accomplishment in completing a task, so if you employ people who meet that minimum there is no change in standards.

73qanda

9th Nov 2019, 01:51

You’ve totally misrepresented that post.
Yes. I was being facetious or mischievous.
I’m all for progress in this area and equal opportunity for both genders. I was just hoping to point out that things have been worse in the past and are worse in many other parts of the world. Pakistan , India and Turkey may well have elected female leaders but according to wiki Pakistan still has high rates of forced and child marriages, sexual violence is on the rise in India and honour killings still occur in Turkey. I’m no expert on this stuff but I am glad we discussing how we encourage women into aviation and not debating if they should be allowed to use DNA evidence in their rape trials or whether it’s distasteful to stone them to death when they are adulterous.
Anyway, the recruitment process is far from de-identified and if you’re an inexperienced young pilot at the moment your job prospects are brighter if you’re female. Simple.

Icarus2001

9th Nov 2019, 02:00

We S/Off and go home and think nothing of work until the next S/on, Can I suggest that you are speaking for yourself not all of us. Myself and many of my colleagues spend a great deal of our "spare time" studying, reading, researching and generally trying to improve our knowledge and keep up with technology changes. Reading accident reports alone takes a huge amount of time. Not to mention arguing with idiot trolls on Pprune.

crosscutter

9th Nov 2019, 05:19

Anyway, the recruitment process is far from de-identified

Perhaps, but I assure you the ultimate selection process is made with no reference to gender. Merit based selection dominates. And just like in previous hiring booms I can also assure you a full bell curve of talent is employed with no dominating stereotype occupying any quartile.

Jetstarpilot

9th Nov 2019, 06:13

I can also assure you a full ***bell*** curve of talent is employed

Provided you ain’t got no ***Bell End***👎👎👎👎

🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆💋🍑💦

hoss

9th Nov 2019, 06:30

Let the numbers do the talking!

Are there any “professional female airline Pilots” with 2 children or more who are doing >850 hrs a year?

Cracker of a thread if anything else.

73qanda

9th Nov 2019, 06:35

And just like in previous hiring booms I can also assure you a full bell curve of talent is employed
Yip I agree we’ve always had representatives from both ends of the distribution employed flying airliners.
I think that to achieve gender targets ( either way) will shift the normal to the left though wouldn’t you agree? It can’t really do anything else ( assuming you think that both genders are equally suited to flying airliners).
I assure you the ultimate selection process is made with no reference to gender.
I’ll take you at your word on that. There must have been a significant change to the process in the very recent past to achieve this. Can I ask how it is achieved? If 50 pilots pass to the final stage do they draw up 50 documents with photos, names, pastimes etc redacted and present those documents to the final selection committee?
Cheers

dr dre

9th Nov 2019, 09:54

People do say “I don’t care about the gender of the pilots, I just want to see the best pilots recruited”, but they don’t define what criteria uncovers “the best”. If the recruiting process is disproportionately favouring females (no solid evidence has been shown that this is the case however) could it be said that it’s not direct discrimination in favour of female applicants, but possibly the recruiting criteria now places more weight in areas that females may have an advantage in?

Better understanding of empathy, better communication skills, more maturity, less driven by ego? I’ll add as a caveat I’m not saying that women definitely have advantages over men in those specific areas. But there are some areas of Non Technical skills where women probably have advantages over men, especially younger men just out of school, and that may be the factor that’s seeing a slightly higher proportion of females make it to the final stages. Using this theory obviously they will also choose men who excel in those areas over men who don’t. Just a thought.

Once upon a time recruitment for an airline was probably who had the most hours in their logbook/who went to the most exclusive all boys school/who was mates with the CP/who was in the recruiter’s Air Force squadron etc. I doubt whether truly the best were being recruited then either, in my personal opinion the system used now would be better.

If you asked all pilots to define the top 3 criteria that the best pilots would have to excel at you’d get hundreds of different answers.

josephfeatherweight

9th Nov 2019, 10:03

Dr Dre - that’s a great post. Very well said.

exfocx

9th Nov 2019, 12:13

Bzzzz but thank you for playing anyway.

If you employ the best people then they will likely significantly exceed the ‘min standard’. Therefore the overall ‘average standard’ is likely to significantly exceed min standard. If you only employ those who just meet or are at min standard then that will become the average standard or at least drag down the average standard from the highs it once was. Therefore the standard has dropped. Below min? Probably not but still below what it could be.

Now you may be perfectly happy with that as an outcome (bottom dwellers and those who need the leg up often are) but when I put my family on an aeroplane or sign on for a tour of duty I’d prefer to know that the best people have been employed, not those who only meet ‘min standard’.

HAHAHAHA, talk about trying to twist your way out of that one. A standard (and remember this, it was your choice of word, not mine) is a measure, it doesn't change if it's exceeded. In the past when women were automatically excluded that didn't seem to result in a problem for THE STANDARD, so why would preferencing women over men result in a reduction in THE STANDARD, unless of course you believe that women overall are less capable than men. Is that what you believe?

Logic's a bitch and something you seem to have trouble with.

exfocx

9th Nov 2019, 12:27

Yeah that's why when you look at the cadet classes at Virgin and Qantas, you see a 50/50 split, when the applicant ratio wouldn't be anything of the sort :rolleyes:

Easily answered, but likely flew over your head. I would put that 50/50 split compared to your view of the likely applicant ratio as to the fact women are taught not to overreach, whereas men are told to have a go anyway. So my money is on the likelihood that overall the female applicants are of a higher standard.

Derfred

9th Nov 2019, 12:39

Agreed Dre.

I’ve been in Qantas long enough to know there were a lot of absolute tools employed years ago who wouldn’t be employed under the current culture, many for the reasons you mentioned. Some of that attitude still prevails, but is progressively being stamped out - and it has little to do with gender, but perhaps if there were more females in the organisation earlier, it would have been stamped out earlier.

However, I think the biggest problem (and the reason for this thread) is that the Company, from the CEO down, have made multiple public statements that they are targeting more female pilots, or actively seeking to improve the gender gap, The very fact that they say “improve” the gender gap implies that there currently exists a “problem” with the gender gap. It’s very convenient language because they get to imply that there is a problem with the gender gap without actually having to justify that there is a problem with the gender gap, or indeed, why. As others have pointed out, the gender gap in other vocational areas of the Company is apparently not a problem - only, it seems, with the pilots.

So long as there is doubt as to the equivalent merits of the larger number of females being employed, there will be friction. The females won’t know if they were employed on merit, and the male applicants won’t know either. That’s not a good state of affairs. Many contributors “in the know” have said it’s not the case, but an similar number “in the know” have said it is. The first QFTA course just happened to be 50/50. Coincidence?

The exact reason for the huge focus by Qantas on female pilots is unknown.

Possibilities:

1. It could be pure PR, Qantas is known for spending huge dollars on marketing while telling every other department to cut costs. The current CEO has previously shown talent for using his position to pursue a social agenda. But I actually doubt he hopes to attract more of the flying public to his airline simply because he targets more female pilots, so I don’t think he would do this from a pure business perspective.

2. Qantas (or it’s CEO) views the pilot employee group as arrogant, overpaid and underworked. They may have statistical data that the current female pilot demographic tend not to be involved in industrial activities, and to be potentially more compliant with the gradual but continued reduction in terms and conditions. Someone mentioned female Presidents earlier... how many females have been actively involved in AIPA in the past? I can only think of one: and she is now a management pilot actively standing next to AJ promoting more female pilots in Qantas. I could be wrong, but I don’t think she ever had any children either. That’s fine, but pretty much all other female pilots I know do have children, and don’t get involved in AIPA industrial work.

3. The female pilot demographic actually performs better than the males (according to whatever KPI’s), perhaps in terms of training failures, incidents, disciplinary matters, or are simply easier to deal with from an HR point of view.

Those are 3 possibilities that I can think of to explain the focus on targeting more females. I’m sure there could be other reasons.

Someone earlier in thread stated that they knew a lot of female pilots, but didn’t know any female pilots with “stay at home husbands”. My anecdotal evidence is the same. I actually have 2 close friends who are “stay at home husbands” - but their wives are both high-earning corporate executives. The rest of us can only wish...

Qantas is a largely international airline, and you don’t get to be a pilot with an international airline without going away from home for multi-day trips. In Qantas you could expect to be away for up to 10-11 days at a time on 3 of the types, or up to 6 days on the A330, and you currently don’t have a choice to avoid that, unless you bid to join the B737. Even on the B737 you can be away for 4 days (it would have been 6 if the latest EBA had been voted up). This is simply not friendly with children unless you have a stay at home partner, or a willing grandparent around the corner.

Not to say it can’t be done, of course, and there are a few who do it, and do it well. I’ve flown with many females. They pretty much fit in to the same bell curve as males... a few good ones, most average, and a few were crap. The ones I’ve known have all taken extensive time off work for children, but most of them have come back. A couple resigned to be stay at home mums. Many of those who stayed took advantage of “carer” legislation to make sure they only worked part time and had weekends off - thus ensuring that all the male pilots (who also had kids, but didn’t qualify as carers because they had a wife) did all the weekend work. And that’s with a 5% female demographic. I’m sure the males with kids are really looking forward to a 50% demographic of females who are legally entitled to weekends off.

The ones who worked part time were generally average. I won’t say all, because some were great because they acknowledged that they worked part time and they kept their eye on the books in their time off and they knew that they weren’t particularly recent and kept their eye on the ball. But some didn’t, and you could could tell as you had to prompt them regularly for simple things as their mind was still on the kids with Grandma.

So there are many reasons why this job is not so attractive to females. So to imply that the gender gap needs to be “fixed” is disingenuous.

Sunfish

9th Nov 2019, 17:28

Given the existence of the gender pay gap. Could I be forgiven for thinking that a largely female pilot group would be a cheaper and more compliant workforce?

Orange future

9th Nov 2019, 17:58

“Yeah that's why when you look at the cadet classes at Virgin and Qantas, you see a 50/50 split, when the applicant ratio wouldn't be anything of the sort”

Are you sure about that, you have seen the applicant numbers and dissected them based upon gender?

You will find that there are a far greater proportion of women applicants for cadet positions than for direct entry positions from people already in the industry.

“Are there any professional female airline Pilots with 2 children or more who are doing >850 hrs a year?”

Yes, plenty. Some with 3 kids. And some with 4.

“more weight in areas that females may have an advantage in?” followed by “more maturity”.

Yes indeed a very good point. Scientific research has shown that females start maturing at an earlier age than males by up to 4 years and is evident even to the point where brain development finishes around the mid twenties.

So if your target demographic is this age group and an emphasis is placed on maturity then females are the clear choice.

“implies that there currently exists a problem with the gender gap.”

I am guessing you are male?

“the gender gap in other vocational areas of the Company is apparently not a problem”

As pointed out before, the other vocation where a significant gender gap exists is engineering and Qantas are taking steps to rebalance this distribution.

Mechanics, like pilots, are where the true global shortage within the aviation industry lies and it would be remiss of airlines not to address this problem.

Check in staff, not such a pressing issue.

“So long as there is doubt as to the equivalent merits of the larger number of females being employed”

There is absolutely no doubt at all.

“The exact reason for the huge focus by Qantas on female pilots is unknown.”

It is very much known. Qantas are seeking to broaden the applicant pool from which they employ pilots.

“They may have statistical data that the current female pilot demographic tend not to be involved in industrial activities”

They MAY also have statistical data that martians are planning to crew their next batch of aircraft too.

“So there are many reasons why this job is not so attractive to females”

Your inaccurate representation of carer legislation not withstanding, your last several paragraphs cut to the heart of the issue we are discussing.

For more than two thirds of Qantas’s history, pilots were exclusively male. The first female to undergo selection for Qantas was asked at her interview if she preferred “tall women”.

The airline pilot industry was built by men and favors men and men will need to adapt to a changing world where rosters and carer lines and cockpit conversations no longer work exclusively in their favor.

Its called the price of doing business. Women exist, they make up half of the the population and if men lose some weekends off in order to accommodate women then its a small price to pay for a progressive society.

Real change always results in the loss of power.

73qanda

9th Nov 2019, 18:07

2. Qantas (or it’s CEO) views the pilot employee group as arrogant, overpaid and underworked. They may have statistical data that the current female pilot demographic tend not to be involved in industrial activities, and to be potentially more compliant with the gradual but continued reduction in terms and conditions.
When personality studies are conducted on large scale across nationalities and cultures women are, on average , found to be more ‘agreeable’ than men. If you believe that ( it appears to be likely in my personal experience) then increasing the ratio of women in an industrial group will make that group ever so slightly more ‘agreeable’ as a whole. Personally I doubt that is a primary motivator though. I imagine that a broad belief in equality for women and minority’s is a more likely driver and that is ( IMO) admirable. How you go about creating equality without actively discriminating against others is where it gets difficult.
If I was a hot-shot young white male pilot with low experience but high skills in 2019 I would probably feel comfortable in my ability to achieve the career I want but if I was an average young white male pilot with low experience I would be shifting in my seat wondering if the current drive for female pilots was going to see me working at my second choice Airline on inferior conditions while someone I was slightly better than got the role I wanted.

MADMAX190

9th Nov 2019, 19:36

What a thread...!
My 2 cents.
My years of flying has shown me:
Some female pilots are good pilots. Some are okay pilots. Some aren't good pilots.
Some male pilots are good pilots. Some are okay pilots. Some aren't good pilots.
I've seen no evidence of one gender being better at the job than the other, so I guess that a fair "target" for Qantas and others, would be to target a similar % of females/males hired to the amount of commercial licenses issued each year to females/males. This % of females will undoubtedly continue to rise, as will the numbers of females in the top jobs.

I don't think anyone, male or female, wants to get a job because of a Quota, Goal or Target, but on merit.

As for the pay gap. At least in the USA a pilot pay gap can be explained easily. It's the seniority system.
The number of females becoming pilots has risen alot over the past 10 years. As such, most of these pilots are still at a regional, or first officers in a major. As time passes, this "pay gap", will disappear.

dr dre

9th Nov 2019, 21:31

If I was a hot-shot young white male pilot with low experience but high skills in 2019 I would probably feel comfortable in my ability to achieve the career I want but if I was an average young white male pilot

So now we’re bring race (or ethnicity) into the equation as well?

Don’t know if you’ve had had a look at newly employed pilots recently at all Aussie airlines but still the overwhelming majority of pilot recruits are of a white, Caucasian background. 25% of Australians currently are of a non-White, non-European background but that definitely isn’t reflected in the current pilot recruitment numbers.

The majority of migrants to Australia are now from non-Caucasian countries of origin (over 70%), so as demographics in this nation change into the future you will definitely see more diversity in race and ethnicity amongst the pilot group. I would already say that is now starting to be reflected amongst younger people in flying schools.

So no evidence at all that non-white pilots are being favoured but still conspiracy theorists persist with claims that white people are being discriminated against? It’s starting to look like some posters on this thread are spending far too much time lurking in the deepest, darkest reaches of the conspiracy theorist internet instead of spending time in real life modern Australia.

Global Aviator

9th Nov 2019, 22:11

Given the existence of the gender pay gap. Could I be forgiven for thinking that a largely female pilot group would be a cheaper and more compliant workforce?

How would that be possible as there is no difference in pay?

Someone said it would appear on ave less $ as more women currently in the lower ranks, over time it balances out...

From day one the same coin?

Professional Amateur

9th Nov 2019, 22:49

The perfect match: Vitriol and logical fallacies.

Can't we all just get along?

The market, one way or another will sort it out.

havick

9th Nov 2019, 22:56

You will find that there are a far greater proportion of women applicants for cadet positions than for direct entry positions from people already in the industry

If true that’s telling in itself with regards to motivation.

Sunfish

9th Nov 2019, 23:05

I suspect Qantas HR thinks this is another good opportunity to divide and rule... Not that it’s an excuse not to be more gender inclusive.

Sunfish

9th Nov 2019, 23:12

Orange Future: Real change always results in the loss of power.

No it doesn’t! It causes a redistribution of power. Furthermore, it can cause major imbalances and injustice if checks and balances are not present.

Rated De

9th Nov 2019, 23:13

Given the existence of the gender pay gap. Could I be forgiven for thinking that a largely female pilot group would be a cheaper and more compliant workforce?

The perfect match: Vitriol and logical fallacies.

Can't we all just get along?

The market, one way or another will sort it out.

Precisely!

Wouldn't it be the case that if the "gender pay gap" existed then cost minimising employers would employ women over men?
Think of the savings for KPI incentivised managers.

virgindriver

10th Nov 2019, 00:19

Shouldn’t the best applicant just be chosen regardless of gender?

Anything else is just discrimination really.

You don’t make the cut- try harder next time.

non_state_actor

10th Nov 2019, 00:42

Its called the price of doing business. Women exist, they make up half of the the population and if men lose some weekends off in order to accommodate women then its a small price to pay for a progressive society.

So positive discrimination and inequality is now a cost of doing business?

Sorry but aviation is already hard for everyone you cannot start pulling those sort of stunts just to try and fulfill some gender quota. If some woman don't want to turn up 24/7/365 like everybody else then is it really the job for them? Not saying they aren't capable but do they really want to do the job which includes missing birthdays christmas easters school holidays etc etc

Ultimately you can't have it all in aviation. If you want weekends and public holidays off go work for a bank or become a school teacher.

34R

10th Nov 2019, 01:08

Whether men like it or not, their positions today are in one way or another a result of discrimination against women.

You're absolutely correct. Shall we start with the very first example of when discrimination occurred, perhaps when the X chromosome was overlooked in favour of the Y?

Oh bugga, come to think of it, that's due to the male as well!! Even on an evolutionary scale there is oppressive patriarchy!

dr dre

10th Nov 2019, 01:15

If some woman don't want to turn up 24/7/365 like everybody else then is it really the job for them? Not saying they aren't capable but do they really want to do the job which includes missing birthdays christmas easters school holidays etc etc

The 1950’s just called, they want that quote back.

Funny how the female majority cabin crew workforce manage to work the exact same rosters and work holidays, Christmas etc without suffering any of these problems which a lot of people here think would supposedly prevent female pilots from being able to do the job.

non_state_actor

10th Nov 2019, 01:51

The 1950’s just called, they want that quote back.

Funny how the female majority cabin crew workforce manage to work the exact same rosters and work holidays, Christmas etc without suffering any of these problems which a lot of people here think would supposedly prevent female pilots from being able to do the job.

It is in response to Orange Future calling for positive discrimination in rostering. Are you happy to start giving up your weekends and christmases so there can be more female pilots?

exfocx

10th Nov 2019, 02:06

You're absolutely correct. Shall we start with the very first example of when discrimination occurred, perhaps when the X chromosome was overlooked in favour of the Y?

Oh bugga, come to think of it, that's due to the male as well!! Even on an evolutionary scale there is oppressive patriarchy!

Oh gee, that's really witty. lolololol the intellectually challenged always come out with some childish comment.

34R

10th Nov 2019, 03:37

Oh gee, that's really witty. lolololol the intellectually challenged always come out with some childish comment.

Gee thanks... and there you have it.... typical response from a SJW...

non_state_actor

10th Nov 2019, 03:55

Because they are still left with what I have just pointed out, while men have their cake and eat it! It isn't difficult to see, if you just open your eyes.

Take part time then, if that is an issue for you. I don't have any problem even if this was positively discriminated against. However if you want to work full time in airlines ( and collect full time money) you have to work full time which means 24/7 rosters and taking the good with the bad.

It is hypocritical to want equality in hiring then to discriminate in rostering once you get in.

dr dre

10th Nov 2019, 04:58

It is in response to Orange Future calling for positive discrimination in rostering. Are you happy to start giving up your weekends and christmases so there can be more female pilots?

Again I’ll refer to my previous point, how do the majority female cabin crew who work the same rosters and weekends and Christmas etc, deal with that and overcome those issues?

73qanda

10th Nov 2019, 05:07

The same way that the male cabin crew do.....ie, there is no discrimination.

Rated De

10th Nov 2019, 05:58

https://youtu.be/-pdnkbs4l_g

Watching Libby Lyons get taken apart with a little factual questioning by Senator David Leyonhjelm was like the posts here: All full of spirit and venom, sadly lacking any factual basis.

Libby won her position on merit now didn't she...
Trained as a primary school teacher, yet ending up on all sorts of boards..

No such thing as patriarchal nepotism of course when it suits you, eh Libby?

hoss

10th Nov 2019, 05:59

re: dr dre

Perhaps not in QF mainline but the turnover of Cabin Crew is much higher compared to Pilots. VA have a pretty high turnover.

34R

10th Nov 2019, 09:52

exfocx

For what it's worth, my position relates back to the opening quotation in this thread about reports of female QF pilots reporting the highest rates of sexual harassment and bullying.

Depending on which study you read and who compiled it, rates of sexual harassment in the workplace range from more than 50% to under 1% (in STEM fields).
How the hell does this variation occur and why is it so vastly different? What is driving sexual harassment in the workplace?
Does it stem from the definition of sexual harassment itself? What are the rules?

Is it no unwanted contact?
Is it no asking anyone out?
Is it no jokes?
Is it glancing at somebody for too long?
Is it swearing?
Is it dismissive behaviour?
Is it being an asshole?

Apart from the HR generic definition, what exactly is it? It's certainly not a scientific term. There seems to be a lot of room for interpretation with regards to boundaries, and it would appear the edges of those boundaries (if they exist) begin to get twisted and shaped in a particular direction, usually to suit a purpose.
I would have thought treating your colleagues with courtesy and respect would avoid all the harassment pitfalls, but apparently descent people are still transgressing?

As is relevant to us today, men and women have been working in complex fields together for only a short amount of time (I'm talking decades). Not very long and on the face of it we aren't doing a very good job of it. There are a lot of bugs to be worked out.
So a blanket comment that two thirds of female qantas pilots are sexually harassed and therefore a perceived implication that we have an oppressive patriarchy is a complete nonsense.

As for equality of opportunity, 100% yes.

Derfred

10th Nov 2019, 11:44

Funny how the female majority cabin crew workforce manage to work the exact same rosters and work holidays, Christmas etc without suffering any of these problems which a lot of people here think would supposedly prevent female pilots from being able to do the job.

You may have made that comment tongue-in-cheek Dre, but it is actually a very valid question and there actually is an answer.

Under the legislation (and I don’t have it in front of me right now but I have read it before, so I may not have it accurate but I will give you the vibe), an employer must provide reasonable flexible working conditions to carers, so long as it does not unreasonably inconvenience the employer.

With a large female flight attendant workforce, Qantas is able to refuse carer conditions to flight attendants, because Qantas can reasonably demonstrate that they would otherwise be unable to crew flights 24/7/365 because a significant proportion of their workforce would actually qualify as carers. Hence NO flight attendants qualify for carers rosters. That is actually the case - there may be minority exceptions but certainly childcare does not qualify a flight attendant special treatment. They generally seem to understand that and many of them leave at some point. There are some career flight attendants but not a large proportion these days. They also have part-time provisions which pilots don’t generally have (despite the best efforts in recent EBA’s). Part-time is unattractive to employers of pilots because the overheads are very high.

However, with a mere 5% female pilot workforce, Qantas cannot make the same argument for pilots. Therefore, they find themselves legally obliged to give the female pilots a roster that suits their childcare requirements. This is typically something like working 3 days per week with all weekends off (B737 - I don’t have current knowledge of how it’s going in the long haul fleets). On the B737 in Qantas, many females with young children work to such a roster. Despite the overall average of females being currently around 5%, the demographic is such that the bulk of the females are currently junior, so the actual percentage in some bases and ranks is a lot higher than 5%, and so yes, the males, (many of whom also have kids) do actually end up having to work most of the weekends. I am not speaking here for what is proposed, I am describing what is actually happening now.

Now, someone above questioned my knowledge of the legislation when I mentioned that these carers rosters were only available to females. That was a bloody good question, and while I again can’t give a concrete answer, I can give you my understanding. The legislation, of course, does not discriminate for gender when defining who qualifies as a “carer”. But Qantas gets to discriminate on gender because a large number of their male pilots actually qualify as carers. Therefore they use the “flight attendant” argument for their male pilots! They can’t give them all carers rosters because they would run out of pilots. Yet, they hand them out to female pilots with kids almost no question asked. Now that might be legally questionable, but I think Qantas spend almost as much on lawyers as they do on PR, so good luck to anyone challenging it. I actually asked AIPA to challenge it many moons ago and I never actually heard the response because the background laughter kind of made the point for me. So as it currently stands, a female pilot can get a carers roster simply if she has kids. A male pilot cannot.

Having said all that, I will leave it to others to speculate what impact a progressive increase in female numbers will have. However, I will put out a suggestion that if it gets to a certain threshold, it is quite possible that suddenly the “flight attendant argument” will become valid for female pilots: “Sorry, there are now too many of you. We will have to start treating you equally with the male pilots. Carer’s rosters are no longer available, you are now required to be available 24/7/365 just like your male colleagues.”

So, to my good female pilot colleagues: be careful what you wish for.

Chiefttp

10th Nov 2019, 11:47

Exfocx,
I’m curious about your age. Many of the posters on this thread are describing a situation and events that they have personally experienced. I’m sure that there is a woeful lack of statistics or studies to prove what many of us, from over 40 years of flying, have actually witnessed. Nobody is against equal pay and opportunity, most are leery of these quota programs because we have seen where they lead.
The chart posted that showed United Airlines has the highest percentage of female pilots of all airlines. Do you know why? Back in the 1970’s the EEOC commission targeted United airlines for discrimination in a number of job positions including pilots. They were forced to correct the numbers and from the 1980’s till 1995 they hired a huge amount of female and minority pilots to correct the percentages and comply with the lawsuit. None of my non female, non minority, friends in the USAF even considered applying to United,
We watched as marginally qualified pilots were called by United 2 years before their military commitment was up and asked to interview for a position that they never applied for. United was actively recruiting folks who never expressed interest in employment at United. Also there were quite a few of sub 1000 hrs general Aviation pilots hired during this period..this is our experience, we were there. Also, please don’t assume this is a case of sour grapes, I was hired by United in 1995 but took another job elsewhere. We’re not Cavemen, just passing on knowledge of real world events as they happened versus what other wish happened.

Derfred

10th Nov 2019, 12:05

Traffic_Is_Er_Was

10th Nov 2019, 12:18

exfocx said:Absolute crap,
From 2019 Australian Institute of Family Studies research:
A study based on court files shows that in both court and non-court ordered arrangements, it is most common for children to spend the majority of their time with their mother and to see their father regularly.
Thus the courts are quite happy for the mothers to do the majority of the parenting
in the small proportion of cases determined by a judge, 45% of court orders provide for sole parental responsibility by the mother, and 11% for sole parental responsibility by the father.
And if the courts have to decide who will be the sole parent, it's usually the mother.

Sprite

10th Nov 2019, 12:25

“sunfish”...you are irrelevant in this area. No experience as a professional pilot. (Very different from a private pilot...apples and oranges)

I’m glad there are many male pilots commenting about the lack of respect us female pilots sometimes get. It helps the troglodytes to realise they’re in the minority. I realise those who think female pilots are getting an advantage in recruitment are the minority...but seriously to those who think this, grow up and realise that women actually can be better candidates. It is possible that the females who are applying are more motivated and more qualified than the males, purely because we have had to fight harder and work harder to get into a position to apply.

Don’t forget we came from schools where the boys studied aviation but it wasn’t allowed for the girls...or where we were told to study “home economics” because that was “what girls should do”. And this happened this year at private schools! So those of us who chose to study in aviation are VERY motivated and very well supported by mentors. I also know by the comments on 121.5 that there are a large number of immature, unprofessional male pilots and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were those who also think women should “be in the kitchen” and not fly. These are the people who should be weeded out...and it is not surprising that they are all immature male voices we hear!

Sprite

10th Nov 2019, 12:33

I’ve found that this thread is far more readable if you exclude posts made by exfsomething. He’s not even actually talking about pilots, which is the topic of the thread. If I was a mod, I would delete them all. In the meantime, the ignore button works.

Classic cognitive dissonance...”ignore logic! Delete the heresy!”

“While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience," committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).”

Derfred

10th Nov 2019, 12:56

Given the existence of the gender pay gap. Could I be forgiven for thinking that a largely female pilot group would be a cheaper and more compliant workforce?

You could be forgiven for thinking that, Sunfish. However there is no gender pay gap in the vocation of Qantas Pilots. A female pilot gets paid the same hourly rate as a male pilot in the same position. And a female pilot gets the same opportunity and treatment for promotion as a male pilot. The problem starts when you start misusing statistics. The average female pilot earns less than the average male pilot. Well of course they do! Demographics! There are more junior females than senior females.

Just to put it out there, some may have noticed that the average gay Qantas executive earns more than the average straight Qantas executive. Perhaps some affirmative action is needed. Why stop at gender?

To get back to the point, when I referenced a potentially cheaper and more compliant workforce with an increased female proportion of pilots in a recent post, I was referring to the collective, not that the females would be cheaper and more compliant than the males. I was referring to a trend that a workforce with a higher percentage of females may as a group be less likely to fight as hard the downward pressure on terms and conditions. I based this observation on active participation rates of females in AIPA over the years.

I also speculated that many female pilots may not care so much about their remuneration because anecdotally most of them have working husbands, and so their families are actually doing quite alright thank you very much. Whereas, many male pilots have wives who do not contribute significantly to the family income, and therefore have a greater interest in their earning potential for their famiily.

So, to be clear, the paragraph above is a “speculation”, which some may find unpalatable, however the one above that is an “observation”, which is vigorously defendable.

almostthere!

10th Nov 2019, 13:08

Give me a single aviation related EBA that says a female is to be paid less than a man for the sane job?

dr dre

10th Nov 2019, 14:18

I realise those who think female pilots are getting an advantage in recruitment are the minority...but seriously to those who think this, grow up and realise that women actually can be better candidates. It is possible that the females who are applying are more motivated and more qualified than the males, purely because we have had to fight harder and work harder to get into a position to apply.

I agree with your general sentiment. Like I alluded to in an earlier post, I think airline recruiters are aiming nowadays to avoid recruiting “those who will cause CRM problems in the future”.

Maybe they are looking for those who possess more empathy, better communication skills, better ability to work in teams and less driven by ego. It may be possible (and I’ll again add as a caveat - not certainly) that females are performing better on assessments in those areas than men.

Derfred

10th Nov 2019, 14:19

Classic cognitive dissonance...”ignore logic! Delete the heresy!”

“While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience," committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).”

Hello Sprite,

I see you have challenged my suggestion that one particular poster be removed from the thread. I suggested they be removed because they were not on topic, argumentative, rude, distracting, and contributing nothing of interest to the discussion of female pilots in Qantas (the topic). If anyone would like to further discuss how various roles of housework have evolved in marriages over the generations I am happy to open a thread on Yahoo, and provide a link.

But for you to throw this at me: Classic cognitive dissonance...”ignore logic! Delete the heresy!”

... I have to admit to being a little offended. I do not think I am guilty of cognitive dissonance.

I have made a couple of posts on this thread that I really worked hard on, because I wanted to try to respectably portray my balance of thoughts on the suggested increase of female pilots in a long-haul airline with the realities of what I have experienced in over three decades of actually working for this airline (despite some dragging this thread into the gutter).

I have children, and I would fully support my daughter pursuing a similar career if it was in her nature, but I sure as damn would make sure that she fully understood the potential realities of what might entail if it was to become a 40-year career for her. And I’m not referring to the racist sexist homophobic misogynist arrogant beer-swilling point-scoring adulterous bullies who made my life difficult when I joined, I’m actually just talking about the job and what it entails - by then she might even get to fly with nice people.

Your PPrune name rang a bell for me for some reason and then I recalled that you made a post some time ago on another thread that I really liked, so I searched for it. Here it is:

Ironically in order to encourage more women pilots it could be that some of the things quoted earlier as potential reasons that women won't fly might be changed if there were more female pilots, leading to a more family oriented, well balanced career for everybody.

Why did I like that post so much?

Maybe because it opened the possibility that many of the things that I dislike about being an airline pilot, which I and many of my colleagues have being trying to address over so many decades, may actually finally be addressed if we get a few more females in the room!

Sure, even with females in the room, we aren’t going to be able to close the airline on weekends and school holidays, much as I would like to.

But maybe the females will be able to gain some traction that the males have been trying for years for. Maybe, just maybe, the female pilots will be able to somehow help us make this a more family-friendly occupation.

My earlier posts on this forum have suggested that this occupation is not particularly female-friendly... Can you fix it?

I also observed that female pilots have been historically disinclined to be active industrially. So maybe you could but you won’t.

Fred.

cloudsurfng

10th Nov 2019, 17:57

You may have made that comment tongue-in-cheek Dre, but it is actually a very valid question and there actually is an answer.

Under the legislation (and I don’t have it in front of me right now but I have read it before, so I may not have it accurate but I will give you the vibe), an employer must provide reasonable flexible working conditions to carers, so long as it does not unreasonably inconvenience the employer.

With a large female flight attendant workforce, Qantas is able to refuse carer conditions to flight attendants, because Qantas can reasonably demonstrate that they would otherwise be unable to crew flights 24/7/365 because a significant proportion of their workforce would actually qualify as carers. Hence NO flight attendants qualify for carers rosters. That is actually the case - there may be minority exceptions but certainly childcare does not qualify a flight attendant special treatment. They generally seem to understand that and many of them leave at some point. There are some career flight attendants but not a large proportion these days. They also have part-time provisions which pilots don’t generally have (despite the best efforts in recent EBA’s). Part-time is unattractive to employers of pilots because the overheads are very high.

However, with a mere 5% female pilot workforce, Qantas cannot make the same argument for pilots. Therefore, they find themselves legally obliged to give the female pilots a roster that suits their childcare requirements. This is typically something like working 3 days per week with all weekends off (B737 - I don’t have current knowledge of how it’s going in the long haul fleets). On the B737 in Qantas, many females with young children work to such a roster. Despite the overall average of females being currently around 5%, the demographic is such that the bulk of the females are currently junior, so the actual percentage in some bases and ranks is a lot higher than 5%, and so yes, the males, (many of whom also have kids) do actually end up having to work most of the weekends. I am not speaking here for what is proposed, I am describing what is actually happening now.

Now, someone above questioned my knowledge of the legislation when I mentioned that these carers rosters were only available to females. That was a bloody good question, and while I again can’t give a concrete answer, I can give you my understanding. The legislation, of course, does not discriminate for gender when defining who qualifies as a “carer”. But Qantas gets to discriminate on gender because a large number of their male pilots actually qualify as carers. Therefore they use the “flight attendant” argument for their male pilots! They can’t give them all carers rosters because they would run out of pilots. Yet, they hand them out to female pilots with kids almost no question asked. Now that might be legally questionable, but I think Qantas spend almost as much on lawyers as they do on PR, so good luck to anyone challenging it. I actually asked AIPA to challenge it many moons ago and I never actually heard the response because the background laughter kind of made the point for me. So as it currently stands, a female pilot can get a carers roster simply if she has kids. A male pilot cannot.

Having said all that, I will leave it to others to speculate what impact a progressive increase in female numbers will have. However, I will put out a suggestion that if it gets to a certain threshold, it is quite possible that suddenly the “flight attendant argument” will become valid for female pilots: “Sorry, there are now too many of you. We will have to start treating you equally with the male pilots. Carer’s rosters are no longer available, you are now required to be available 24/7/365 just like your male colleagues.”

So, to my good female pilot colleagues: be careful what you wish for.

not true....many male pilots are on carers lines. If you meet the requirements, you will be given a carers line.

Sprite

10th Nov 2019, 19:33

Thank you for your reasoned reply Fred. I think all legitimate views should be considered and I think the poster you mentioned has actually made some excellent points. Deleting their posts would be a pity.

I think you’ll find we are a lot more active now than than we have been in the past, and are slowly having success at changing those parts of the job that we all dislike. We just go about it in different ways. Additionally sometimes it takes a critical mass of like minded people to get things done. It’s very hard to fight for something when you feel alone and unsupported in your view, much easier when there is a group supporting and encouraging you.

No we are not going to get every weekend and Christmas off. There are other female dominated professions who work shift work and do not get this so it’s not that putting women off a career in aviation. It believe it is possible to make the job more family friendly for everyone if we keep making that a priority in negotiations.

Steepclimb

10th Nov 2019, 20:42

It's simple the pilot profession is not family friendly. You want to know? I, a man had to bring my kids to the airport and plant them in front of Sky TV while I flew. They loved it. I bloody didn't.
Another day I was held overhead. I turned up at school very late to pick them up.

I'm a man. Imagine being a Mother?

All of us who have children know the difficulty. My wife is lucky because I let it go. My wife has the good job. I walked away from flying and took on the boys.
That option is not available to everyone.

So it's no surprise that women aren't fifty percent of pilots.

ElZilcho

10th Nov 2019, 21:58

If QANTAS (or any Airline) are serious about increasing the number of Female Pilots then they’ll address it at the grass roots level. Attend School Career evenings with Female role models to inspire more girls to consider Aviation as career.

Attempting to increase the number of Female Pilots hired from the existing pool of those already qualified, without addressing the supply, will lead to failure. It’s not like flying schools are seeing a 50/50 ratio at entry only for women to be culled by the patriarchy, they were never there to begin with as far more Boys consider Aviation as a Career than girls. Ive wanted to be a Pilot since I was 5 years old. I moulded my entire Schooling electives around a career as a Pilot. Why aren’t girls doing the same? Could it be we simply like different things? How many 5 year old girls have model planes on their bookshelf? I did, my 5 year old son does, yet my 8 year old daughter couldn’t give 2 stuffs about Planes, no matter how many Airshows I drag her to!

The fact is, there are female Pilots and have been for decades. There’s just less of them than males and that can only be addressed at the grass roots level, if at all.

As for some of vitriol being regurgitated on this forum (from both sides), I would of thought by now people would have realised that exaggerated arguments, hyperbole and virtue signaling does nothing to help your cause, quite the opposite in fact as once you lower yourself to that level, along with pointless personal attacks, people simply tune out.

I finished School in the mid 90’s and started training as a Pilot in ‘98. Never in my entire schooling life were girls “forced into Home Ec while the Boys took shop”. Not once did I witness girls at School being told they couldn’t be Pilots (or anything for that matter). Plenty of my (female) classmates became Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers and various other professions of their choosing.... admittedly I did go to a reasonably high achieving Private School. As a Pilot, I’m probably one of the least educated of my former classmates!

Once upon a time (when you needed thousands of hours just for a regional T-Prop job), to be a successful Pilot you needed to have a strong passion for flying. Plenty of women have this passion, and I’ve worked alongside them (in both seats) over my career. There was just less of them than men. I’ve also seen plenty of (Male and Female) Pilots fall to winds in the early years as they simply didn’t have that passion to do the hard years in GA before making it to the Jets. However, I have seen vastly more Women than Men who, having survived GA, elect to either stop flying all together or limit themselves to specific fleets/Airlines due to lifestyle considerations. Some might argue that these Women were “forced to do so” by their evil husbands who insist it’s the Women’s Job to stay at home, but I haven’t seen any evidence to support this. Most of the Women I knew personally who made this choice did so before marriage and kids had come along.

Im not saying institutional sexism didn’t exist. It absolutely did and my hats off to the ladies who fought back and got to where there are today. I also acknowledge that there are still pockets of that era who need to hurry up and retire. But the overarching reality is, there’s a shortage of female Pilots in 2019 not because they’re excluded by the patriarchy but because they simply weren’t interested to begin with. Those who are, and have the same passion as their male peers, have done just as well in my experience.

As for being called sweetie, cutie or whatever... join the club. I’m a 40 year old man with grey hair and a gut yet I get called the same names by “legacy crew” all the time. My first flight on the 777 felt like my first day at School! “Oh look how cute he is in his new uniform! You’re just a baby!” Etc etc... I was 35!! It’s seems a generational thing, not a sexual advance. If you don’t like it, speak up sure, but every generation has their lingo... I can’t understand half of the Millennials slang!

A Squared

10th Nov 2019, 22:33

In the US, pilots have the greatest adjusted gender pay gap (https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Gender-Pay-Gap-2019-Research-Report.pdf) of all professions, according to a Glassdoor report, with a 27% gap in base pay.

THis quote demonstrates that absolute dishonesty of the "gender gap" statistics. The vast majority of US pilots are employed by Part 121 airlines, and virtually every one of those airlines has a rigid, longevity based pay scale. Furthermore, a significant portion of the minority of working US pilots *not* employed at airlines are employed at large "fractional ownership management", or 91(k) operators, which also have large pilot groups, and a rigid pay structure based on longevity. For all these pilots there is *NO* gender gap in pay. None. Zip Nada. For those relatively few pilots not on such a pay scale, are there companies whose pay policies are not gender blind? Perhaps there are some few. But, the number of pilots who are not paid according to a longevity based pay scale is far too small to create and industry-wide "gender wage gap" of 27 per cent. It's simply numerically impossible for the pay of that few pilots to to skew the statistics of the entire industry, most of which has no "gender pay gap". So the difference is not a "gender gap" as in sense the oft repeated claim women are paid less then men for the same job. I don't know what causes it, but I do know for a fact that is is not because the industry, generally, has pay scales where women's are paid less than their male peers. I would speculate that if you looked at the seniority lists at most airlines the women tend to have less seniority (and longevity ) so tend to be a) on lower steps of their respective pay scales than the average male pilot, and b) tend to have a larger proportion of FO's to Captains than do men, again because of the lower average years of employment. My own employer would be a prime example. Fairly small pilot group, but have a greater proportion of women pilots than the proportion of US ATP holders who are women. But, they are all relatively low on the seniority list, and are all FO's. Lest any one try to jump to conclusions, there are no captains junior to any of the women FO's, and one of them was previously employed by the company and was a captain. She decided to seek employment elsewhere and left the company, and recently decided to come back after about 8-10 years of working elsewhere. Of course, seniority being what it is, she started out as a junior FO when she got rehired. And I can guarantee you that the base pay of every single female pilot at my company is *identical*, right to the penny, as each of her classmates with the same Date of Hire. But, I suspect that if the Gender Pay Gap enthusiasts were to analyze my company's pay, they would find a large "Gender Pay Gap", despite there being exactly none. Just for fun I ran the numbers on this for my company. If you have the pay scale and the seniority list, you know what everyone's base pay is. The professional Gender Pay Gap baiters would claim that my company has a 38 percent "gender pay gap" in for pilots, or that woman pilots at my company " get paid 62 cents for every dollar that the men get paid." This despite the fact there is not a fraction of a penny of difference in how men and women pilots are paid.

Lead Balloon

10th Nov 2019, 22:47

A Squared

10th Nov 2019, 22:55

If there is a gender pay gap, why aren’t almost all employees (including pilots) female? If females are in fact paid less for doing the same work, wouldn’t the beancounters be screaming for most of the workforce to be female?

Exactly.

If the management of my company really did pay women pilots 62% of what they pay men, they would be hiring women pilots. Period. And I suspect they'd be looking for ways to get rid of the men. What company *wouldn't" wish to reduce labor (labour, if you prefer) costs by 38% ???

Clare Prop

11th Nov 2019, 00:23

How about stop the squabbling for a minute and remember the Air Transport Auxiliary women who flew in WW2.

dr dre

11th Nov 2019, 00:47

No we are not going to get every weekend and Christmas off. There are other female dominated professions who work shift work and do not get this so it’s not that putting women off a career in aviation. It believe it is possible to make the job more family friendly for everyone if we keep making that a priority in negotiations.

This post in spades.

A lot of posters seem to be throwing their hands up in the air and claiming “piloting is too difficult a profession for most women to be able to raise a family in, that’s just the way it is”.

Why not push for more family friendly rostering, better access to child care for pilots, better support and integration for families?

This will benefit fathers as well. Everyone has families, even single male pilots without kids.

Of course we’ll never achieve a total 9-5 workplace, but maybe we can create working conditions a little better than they are now?

hans brinker

11th Nov 2019, 04:50

A Squared

11th Nov 2019, 05:17

How about stop the squabbling for a minute and remember the Air Transport Auxiliary women who flew in WW2.

Well, if you can't make an intelligent contribution, you could always try to deflect the course of the discussion with an irrelevant and irrational emotional appeal.

Hope that works out for you.

Rated De

11th Nov 2019, 05:49

If there is a gender pay gap, why aren’t almost all employees (including pilots) female? If females are in fact paid less for doing the same work, wouldn’t the beancounters be screaming for most of the workforce to be female?

As referenced earlier, it is simple economics.

Substitute cheaper women for more expensive men.
Workplaces all over the globe ought be dominated by women....

A "manager" with self interest KPI would be hiring women like a drug addict looking for the next score....

C441

11th Nov 2019, 06:14

Why not push for more family friendly rostering, better access to child care for pilots, better support and integration for families?
This will benefit fathers as well. Everyone has families, even single male pilots without kids.
This is available already. It’s called a “Carer’s Line”. The unfortunate side effect of this is the non-carers line holders do a lot of the less palatable trips have more frequent reserve periods and generally worse rosters as a result.

Don’t get me wrong. There are pilots of all sexes who genuinely need a carer’s line but the flow-on effects for other (particularly the junior) pilots is a poorer lifestyle overall. They too have families and loved ones but by default spend more weekends away and have more disrupted rosters as a result of Carer’s lines.

maggot

11th Nov 2019, 06:24

This is available already. It’s called a “Carer’s Line”. The unfortunate side effect of this is the non-carers line holders do a lot of the less palatable trips have more frequent reserve periods and generally worse rosters as a result.

Don’t get me wrong. There are pilots of all sexes who genuinely need a carer’s line but the flow-on effects for other (particularly the junior) pilots is a poorer lifestyle overall. They too have families and loved ones but by default spend more weekends away and have more disrupted rosters as a result of Carer’s lines.
Thats a big issue imo
I qualify for one (CL) but they're not available due resources... So my kids are worth less than others and I do all the **** trips they don't want and extra blank lines.
Thanks a lot
for how long do people qualify? When the kids are in their 20s? Oops better retire before paying back all those BLs...

But that's not really what this thread is about

Rated De

11th Nov 2019, 06:25

This is available already. It’s called a “Carer’s Line”. The unfortunate side effect of this is the non-carers line holders do a lot of the less palatable trips have more frequent reserve periods and generally worse rosters as a result.

Don’t get me wrong. There are pilots of all sexes who genuinely need a carer’s line but the flow-on effects for other (particularly the junior) pilots is a poorer lifestyle overall. They too have families and loved ones but by default spend more weekends away and have more disrupted rosters as a result of Carer’s lines.

Sound's fantastic, can a Qantas pilot of either gender just work when it suits?
Are these "carer's lines" granted on a 50% gender equal basis?

itsnotthatbloodyhard

11th Nov 2019, 07:31

The 1950’s just called, they want that quote back.

I’d just like to point out that when I become King, female pilots will be welcome and anyone who wants a carer’s line can have one.

But if anyone comes out with this ‘The [insert decade] called and wants their [insert whatever] back’ nonsense (and God knows, they will), they’ll be set fire to. The same will apply to anyone who tells the one about the dog in the cockpit.

Thank you. Carry on.

dr dre

11th Nov 2019, 08:15

But if anyone comes out with this ‘The [insert decade] called and wants their [insert whatever] back’ nonsense (and God knows, they will), they’ll be set fire to.

My comment was in relation to a post claiming that “women don’t really want be working a job in which they miss birthdays, Xmas, holidays, weekends etc” even though there’s probably hundreds of thousands of them in this country that do just that. Maybe I should’ve said the “2010’s want that comment back”, because in 2019 there’s plenty of pilots continuing with that line of thought.

itsnotthatbloodyhard

11th Nov 2019, 08:29

My comment was in relation to a post claiming that “women don’t really want be working a job in which they miss birthdays, Xmas, holidays, weekends etc” even though there’s probably hundreds of thousands of them in this country that do just that. Maybe I should’ve said the “2010’s want that comment back”, because in 2019 there’s plenty of pilots continuing with that line of thought.

Watch it, you’ve been warned.

Thank you 73qanda, that one’s on the list too, along with ‘You forgot the coffee luv!’ and ‘I said I was f*#@n cold, not f*#@n stupid’.

Chiefttp

11th Nov 2019, 09:10

and after almost 2 decades of non stop female and minority hiring they have 3% more females than the average. Sorry but I have never seen a UAL class picture where more than 20% were female & minority combined. Yes, it was absolutely easier to get a job at UAL in those years as a female/minority than it was 20 years before. One big reason: in 1960 ,as a female you would not get hired as a pilot. If you are worried about getting a job be better than the other white guy, because he is still your main competition.

Hans Brinker,
so we’ve answered the original question, even when an airline commits to hiring more minorities and women, for decades, the overall percentages are still very low, Why? As other posters have said, there are a myriad of reasons and a decree from upper management imposing a feel good quota will probably not achieve the desired effect and inevitably force the hiring of inexperienced and under qualified applicants if the pool of said applicants is shallow. It’s not that Women are being discriminated against, it’s just there aren’t enough of them in the career field to increase the percentages appreciably.

Chiefttp

11th Nov 2019, 09:13

and after almost 2 decades of non stop female and minority hiring they have 3% more females than the average. Sorry but I have never seen a UAL class picture where more than 20% were female & minority combined. Yes, it was absolutely easier to get a job at UAL in those years as a female/minority than it was 20 years before. One big reason: in 1960 ,as a female you would not get hired as a pilot. If you are worried about getting a job be better than the other white guy, because he is still your main competition.

Hans Brinker,
so we’ve answered the original question, even when an airline commits to hiring more minorities and women, for decades, the overall percentages are still very low, Why? As other posters have said, there are a myriad of reasons and a decree from upper management imposing a feel good quota will probably not achieve the desired effect and inevitably force the hiring of inexperienced and under qualified applicants if the pool of said applicants is very shallow. It’s not that Women are being discriminated against, it’s just there aren’t enough of them in the career field to increase the percentages appreciably. It reminds me of some current politicians who want to tax billionaires in order to pay for feel good programs, It sounds good, but in reality, there aren’t enough billionaires to tax in order to pay for all these feel good schemes.

oicur12.again

11th Nov 2019, 17:39

An interesting debate going on here, I follow with interest and as always an argument such as this actually teaches alternative points of view previously unconsidered.

However, I STRONGLY suggest people just drop the gender gap portion of the argument as it is taken grossly out of context, is generally misunderstood and is simply derailing an otherwise informative debate.

I have never worked for Qantas but I highly doubt their industrial motivation includes cheapening the workforce by paying women pilots less than their male counterpart.

hotnhigh

11th Nov 2019, 19:09

What's next? Soon you'll be demanding quotas for bricklayers, plumbers and garbos.
And if not, why not?

Slippery_Pete

11th Nov 2019, 20:19

What's next? Soon you'll be demanding quotas for bricklayers, plumbers and garbos.
And if not, why not?

This has already been discussed on this thread.

It is the same reason Qantas aren’t “targeting” females for LAMEs or males for check-in.

Because it’s all about the publicity.

Rated De

11th Nov 2019, 21:27

This has already been discussed on this thread.

It is the same reason Qantas aren’t “targeting” females for LAMEs or males for check-in.

Because it’s all about the publicity.

Provided it generates faux outrage and column inches, then PR has done its job.
It might also move a few gym memberships and car insurance...
Qantas is nothing but a hollowed out shell of its former self, with an inadequate emperor enamored with his own image. His day spent busily scrap booking every image of himself...
Virtue signalling, manufacturing crisis and narcissism is much easier than actually bettering an airline.

hans brinker

12th Nov 2019, 17:43

Hans Brinker,
so we’ve answered the original question, even when an airline commits to hiring more minorities and women, for decades, the overall percentages are still very low, Why? As other posters have said, there are a myriad of reasons and a decree from upper management imposing a feel good quota will probably not achieve the desired effect and inevitably force the hiring of inexperienced and under qualified applicants if the pool of said applicants is shallow. It’s not that Women are being discriminated against, it’s just there aren’t enough of them in the career field to increase the percentages appreciably.

Absolutely, and not every pilot is cut out to work as an airline pilot. The only way we will see more women in aviation is by getting a lot more to start flying, hiring every current female pilot out there won't make a dent in the percentages and would obviously be wrong.

edit:All my old post were deleted, from my post count, and I show up as "I am new here", so testing if I can edit an old post, and trying to get in touch with the mods to see what happened....

blow.n.gasket

13th Nov 2019, 10:42

Just like Ernie Dingo’s left testicle,
”It ain’t right and it ain’t fair “ !

tio540

15th Nov 2019, 10:03

Qantas wants 50% female applicants, but hires a man as CEO, and Chief Pilot. Nothing to see here.

fl610

15th Nov 2019, 22:18

but hires a man as CEO [QUOTE]

Open for debate, I reckon!

Ichiban

19th Nov 2019, 09:17

Candid Camera Classic: First Female Pilot. 1963.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMuZI5kmpVU&feature=youtu.be

currawong

20th Nov 2019, 00:45

The RAAF now has an aircrew recruiting stream only open to female applicants.

Like This - Do That

20th Nov 2019, 00:54

With a reduced IMPS. I'm all for increasing the pool of brilliant candidates for RAAF aircrew or RAAC tank troop leaders or RAN maritime warfare officers or whatever. But reduced IMPS on the basis of the member's gender? Not sure that's kosher.

Rated De

20th Nov 2019, 01:15

currawong

20th Nov 2019, 01:56

Behind a pay wall.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x1028/https_blogs_images_forbes_com_bishopjordan_files_2018_09_fem ale_pilots_dc096f6e4e979298e5de86b021cb574cbd8941af.jpg
Sourced from Forbes.

Surely, there's room for a few more.

No figures for Sweden?

Climb150

20th Nov 2019, 02:19

The USA has at least five organisations promoting women in aviation and they have been around for decades. With all of the effort they put in to get more women in the pointy end, no US airline has more than 7% female pilots.

There are no barriers to entry for women wanting to fly in the USA and the airlines here have recruited women for 40 years.

With all of this effort the amount of female pilots cant break 10% at a US major.

Maybe, just maybe ladies dont really want to do it as much as men?

Rated De

20th Nov 2019, 09:41

International Men's Day 19 November 2019.

Where was Little Napoleon, singing the praises of his workforce, a substantial number being men?

Nothing not a peep..

mattyj

20th Nov 2019, 17:56

I think by his actions he’s proven to love men in general..I have no issues there

maggot

20th Nov 2019, 19:13

International Men's Day 19 November 2019.

Where was Little Napoleon, singing the praises of his workforce, a substantial number being men?

Nothing not a peep..
Oh boo hoo

Chronic Snoozer

20th Nov 2019, 21:24

The best way to fix alleged discrimination.....is err with more discrimination.

more positive discrimination, positive......!

dr dre

20th Nov 2019, 22:24

The USA has at least five organisations promoting women in aviation and they have been around for decades.

Those organisations don’t control airline recruitment. I believe US major airline recruitment for a long time had been a bit of a closed shop. A lot of it dominated by ex military pilots who would recruit their buddies first and foremost.

With recent shortages this may be changing, it may be better to look at ratios in relation to younger and more recent demographics for a more accurate picture.

Climb150

20th Nov 2019, 22:44

So when United ask what your "Women in Aviation" membership number is they are just messing around? You obviously know very little about these types of organisations so maybe do a bit more research before posting again.

PoppaJo

1st Aug 2023, 20:06

This thread and many others appear to have made todays front page, Herald Sun.

dragon man

1st Aug 2023, 20:39

Unfortunate as most of what is said is correct and that will bring the house down on me I’m sure.

gordonfvckingramsay

1st Aug 2023, 20:52

This thread and many others appear to have made todays front page, Herald Sun.

Behind a paywall, can you post the text?

dragon man

1st Aug 2023, 20:56

News (https://archive.md/o/ScYzb/https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news)
Victoria (https://archive.md/o/ScYzb/https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/victoria)

Qantas pilots target female colleagues, new CEO Vanessa Hudson in vile leaked discussionsLeaked comments from an online chat forum have sparked criticism of Qantas’ “ingrained” sexist culture.
Suzan Delibasic (https://archive.md/o/ScYzb/https://www.heraldsun.com.au/journalists/suzan-delibasic) and Mark Buttler (https://archive.md/o/ScYzb/https://www.heraldsun.com.au/journalists/mark-buttler)2 min read
August 1, 2023 - 8:42PM https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/FKFKJZ_Amgg2J4Lpz0rpEkTDWW3Ii2ARqa030PQRnJlUEijaq2ePXdoQZzGJ 3p5Gr9DkeLRzRcHzrEYJRvwzs4jFzYSucXlAVNjNn7cK4ONimamezkQVmw=s 0-d-e1-ft#https://archive.md/ScYzb/fd15677b6c90274020801191f0877e5db7a58cc3.jpgLeaked discussions between Qantas pilots reveal disparaging comments at the expense of female colleagues. Picture: NCA NewsWire

Qantas pilots have used a “blokey” online chat forum to criticise their new boss, make crude jokes about women and moan about female pilots “spawning offspring”.
The Herald Sun can reveal a Qantas chatroom with dozens of employees is saturated with disparaging humour at the *expense of women.
It is believed the forum is moderated by a Qantas captain.
In posts dating back to 2018, the resentment of those involved at management is clear in a high number of comments obtained by the Herald Sun. https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/r8kyBm6cgH-TeMK7KdQWMnBdZWIiiAHsLweZ9PrFYdIpH2xDNFCTAxIY9nWt5KeD2q01f8A lJKDnDpQcXJu1EHO9TqQkvGc0DhZ9niimafR31uzDG0XVoQ=s0-d-e1-ft#https://archive.md/ScYzb/86b489a4dbe954cd2ccf56939733d4f8123167a5.jpgQantas CEO designate Vanessa Hudson was criticised in the online comments as well as other female colleagues. Picture: NCA NewswireA Qantas insider said it showed the airline’s “sexist” culture was “ingrained” and institutionalised, thriving unchecked.
One contributor posts about women having an “advantage” over men in every area.
“They can go off, run their breeding program or get a cushy job in the office at twice the pay of the other full time *office staff,” the post said.
It’s understood the post has been removed and the incident reported to the airline’s human resources department.
In another offensive post, a member of the group expresses similar sentiments.
That man wrote of “a rapid influx of female pilots of a certain age group spawning offspring and then wanting flexible work arrangements”. https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/DK0HHT2exoy-sLpaBZ3DRDs9qvqgD0ixYDDZJwzcOKRgS5SHI40MmbghVQgBmQIJt1t0W_GU kdItUmoLENvEya61Qp6a70imifngYVWjuEPbg9qcHP4Zsgw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://archive.md/ScYzb/0de8708e0f73e78f8a31b66ed441ab1cd51c7283.webpQantas pilots have used a ‘blokey’ online chat forum to make misogynistic comments about women.Qantas targets for gender representation also come under attack, with one commenter arguing more qualified male pilots will be rejected in favour of women with lower skill levels.
He urges training and assessment standards be uniformly applied.https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/TKSj-g_znhvYaikLvY8ZgZr1iqblydPAy4EKc1Wy_U_EQvJZw6GCyJPBM4fc6jAdF EvNQ6xWXF0Aab5fiQ5_KsWppBSD6Oz5Gn6fXdWir0qh0iAliNv6JQ=s0-d-e1-ft#https://archive.md/ScYzb/2f799bd82b4ab23feff05a14d6294ea6c76762ad.jpgSome of the comments complained of women having ‘much more advantage’.A recent post referring to the announcement of pilot scholarships for 50 female students criticises the company’s new chief executive Vanessa Hudson.
“Interesting the day we get a female CEO announced is the day we get advised of this overt discrimination,” he wrote.
The Herald Sun understands two of the pilots in the group are no longer with Qantas and a third is not flying while under investigation.
Qantas chief pilot Dick Tobiano said the comments were unacceptable and did not reflect the airline’s values.
“We have many talented female pilots at Qantas and we want to encourage a lot more of them. Aviation hasn’t been good at that historically and clearly some outdated thinking still exists in some pockets,” Mr Tobiano said.
Seven per cent of Qantas pilots are women and 15 per cent are female at QantasLink, compared with a figure of about five per cent worldwide. The carrier’s academy has about 20 per cent women on board.
It comes after a Qantas pilot who fought for gender equality announced last year she was suing the airline for discrimination and sexual harassment.
Davida Forshaw lodged proceedings in the Victorian Federal Court, claiming she had been sexually harassed by male colleagues. She alleged her *career was hindered by male superiors who made inappropriate remarks and advances.
In February, Qantas applied to the Federal Court to throw out her case.
Ms Forshaw alleged she was told to dye her hair and wear a push-up bra if she wanted to succeed.
In documents filed in court, Qantas described her allegations as “an abuse of the court process

PoppaJo

1st Aug 2023, 21:01

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1602/a2d5d0fd_9605_4982_87c6_6d4864391bd4_1fc64f0a8b9b5af5669fb16 05f0f9fa090cb7475.jpeg

Sky News just had a debate on this one. Commentator said something along the lines of questioning people’s competence which is unfair. Remove the quota hiring campaign and you wouldn’t have that unfair problem. As a female Captain said to me only recently ‘the company has caused this mess’.

gordonfvckingramsay

1st Aug 2023, 21:59

Sky News just had a debate on this one. Commentator said something along the lines of questioning people’s competence which is unfair. Remove the quota hiring campaign and you wouldn’t have that unfair problem. As a female Captain said to me only recently ‘the company has caused this mess’.

They have indeed caused it. Of the women I’ve flown with, most are there by pure hard work and almost all of them despise the way in which airlines have used their “plight” as females in a male dominated world for a points scoring exercise. Quotas denigrate those who succeed because it makes their hard work and dedication to the job virtually invisible.

It reminds me of a trip some months back where a man of indigenous extraction (if I am allowed to say that) I happened to be sitting next to while paxing, turned to me during the welcome to country PA and said “do they really think we give a sh!t!?”. Sorry if that opens up another controversial can of worms here but could these managers have gotten it any more wrong with their woke facade?

Respect isn’t about sucking up to someone, it’s about removing barriers to their success and acknowledging them for what they are capable of, and then getting out of their way.

This article has obviously cherry picked the most offensive comments to sell a few papers.

Troo believer

1st Aug 2023, 22:07

Return of service obligation.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1789x1302/img_3909_b3704df150bad5932620e9f1308739eb6a6087d5.jpeg
A picture paints a thousand words.

havick

2nd Aug 2023, 02:31

Return of service obligation.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1789x1302/img_3909_b3704df150bad5932620e9f1308739eb6a6087d5.jpeg
A picture paints a thousand words.

Just wow.

dr dre

2nd Aug 2023, 03:42

Remove the quota hiring campaign and you wouldn’t have that unfair problem.

For mainline the amount of female recruits is similar to the amount of female applicants. You only need to look at the photos of the new hires each month to see women make up only a fraction of new hires.

ROH111

2nd Aug 2023, 04:00

For mainline the amount of female recruits is similar to the amount of female applicants. You only need to look at the photos of the new hires each month to see women make up only a fraction of new hires.

hopefully this is because they are hiring the best people for the job. Not a quota.

dr dre

2nd Aug 2023, 04:10

hopefully this is because they are hiring the best people for the job. Not a quota.

There’s been monthly courses started this year with zero women, and courses with women in a slightly higher proportion than exist in the industry. But overall it averages to about 10% which is roughly the same percentage of female pilots in the industry at the moment.

RealSatoshi

2nd Aug 2023, 04:33

For mainline the amount of female recruits is similar to the amount of female applicants.
That statement implies that female recruits -> guaranteed employment, versus male recruits -> compete on merit...

dr dre

2nd Aug 2023, 04:47

That statement implies that female recruits -> guaranteed employment, versus male recruits -> compete on merit...

I’ll clarify what I meant:

Roughly 10% of pilots in the Australian aviation industry are female.

Roughly 10% of new hires to mainline in the last year have been female.

I’m told there were around 2000 applicants for 400 positions over the first two years of post Covid recruitment. So on rough figures 200 of the applicants would have been female, and 40 of the new hires would have been female.

swh

2nd Aug 2023, 06:29

Why don’t they just have the cadetship only open to people who identify as being female and guarantee them a FO job with one of the subsidiaries when they finish the course ? The cadetships should be fee free for anyone that identifies as being female. Hopefully they are correctly counting all pilots that identify as female as being female.

The ex-cadets after being employed with QF subsidiaries for a little while would meet the mainline minimums quickly, and should have the leg up.with the QF mainline training with the exceptional level of training/experience gained. The policy should be every female pilot that meets the minimum requirements goes directly into the hold pool, they already work for a QF subsidiary, they already meet the QF standard. No need for a interview process.

They could easily build this up to over 200 pilots that identify themselves as female a year. The regionals and subsidiaries can remain at a higher male percentage on lower wages and mainline female percentage can go up to be a world leader in just a few years.

Ladloy

2nd Aug 2023, 07:19

I wish the senior pilot cohort cared for the future newstarts pay and conditions as much as they rattle on about women in aviation and quotas.

On Guard

2nd Aug 2023, 09:33

I’ll clarify what I meant:

Roughly 10% of pilots in the Australian aviation industry are female.

Roughly 10% of new hires to mainline in the last year have been female.

I’m told there were around 2000 applicants for 400 positions over the first two years of post Covid recruitment. So on rough figures 200 of the applicants would have been female, and 40 of the new hires would have been female.

Dre, do you know how far through that 400 they are? I’m assuming external open again sometime soon?

Cheers.

Clare Prop

2nd Aug 2023, 12:56