Came here for this, leaving satisfied!

Well it seems to be, there's a notable uptick of ladies on the ramp, chucking bags and fuelling.
We've always had a few on the spanners.

The waste collectors are still exclusively men

What about ATC? They can talk all day and tell men what to do.
Just a joke ladies.

The way we're going. there will be nobody left in the kitchens :}

Rather odd I never seem to see these programs for brick layers, taxi drivers and the like. :ugh:

I have to say that I think it’s a good thing to have programs like this. There are so many girls who’ve not even considered aviation as a career because 1) they don’t know about it or 2) they see it being so male dominated that they are worried they’ll be not accepted. This basically means there is about 50% of the population to tap into for employment meaning we can have enough Australian staff without seeking them from overseas.

Whilst I know this forum is mostly an anonymous gabfest, do take a look at the comments on this post thus far and think about whether if you were a girl wanting to join the industry and doing some research, do you think these comments would encourage or discourage them?

Really? Women don’t know there are two pilots up the front of a passenger jet?
That is up there with the ridiculous statement “ you can’t be it if you can’t see it”.

There are no additional barriers to women entering aviation than men. Equal opportunity exists already. Why should we expect a 50% ratio?

and there you have it folks….took all of about two seconds to incite the rage….. perhaps this relates to my second point as to why woman don’t want to work in aviation?

what about that woman/girls who’ve never been on an aircraft to hear one of those rare things known as a female pilot? Tell me, how do they know?

They know because they are females born in the last 20 years. They've heard nothing but people telling them they can do or be whatever they want to do or be. Perhaps they just don't want to do or be some things.

When I was a teenager, I looked up at aircraft in the sky and thought to myself “I’d love to fly one of those”. I didn’t think “there’s definitely a man flying that”.

So why do you think a girl isn’t looking up thinking the same thing about wanting to fly it? The world is so full of information these days that is virtually impossible to not be able to find the relevant information about a potential career.

I think it’s all a crock. There’s many good females in aviation, maybe the reason there isn’t a 50/50 split is because 50% of females aren’t interested in flying?

Can you show me where my language exposed "rage"?

I fly with plenty of women pilots and not one I have asked is in favour of quotas. Almost all of them NEVER play the female card, they just get on with the job.

I have done a few school careers days in the past 10 years. The number of teenage females who did not know piloting was available to them was startling. They honestly think that they can't do it.
It's not the hours etc, after all, cabin crew do fairly similar hours etc and there's no shortage of ladies wanting to be cabin crew.
Retraining a female pilot after she's returned from maternity leave is no more expensive than retraining a male pilot post heart attack/cancer/significant injury.
To this day, refuellers etc still ask to see the captain when I am standing right in front of them. No point in asking the male cabin crew, he doesn't know how the fuel panel works.

You have to retrain all pilots returning from heart attack/cancer/significant injury, and I'd hazard that those absences from work haven't been by choice, but there's only some you have to retrain after maternity leave.

What a dumb comment. Like, really dumb.

So you're saying that women don't have heart attacks? Do men have 3 or 4 heart attacks that they have to be re-trained after? If you're trying to whinge about the percentage of female pilots it'd pay to come up with rational arguments.

I was told (unofficially) that they had compared the rate of female pilots taking time off work with maternity leave and sick leave vs male pilots taking time off with sick leave and surprisingly the male pilot cohort were off work longer. The theory being younger male pilots are more likely to undertake extreme or contact sports which cause long term injury, and older men have higher rates of chronic illness than women.

It’s a moot point anyway as it’s illegal to discriminate in employment based on maternity status.

Who mentioned quotas? The original post about the government grant had nothing to do with the often spoken about but rarely seen “quota”. It spoke about education seminars, workshops, events, career materials etc.

Of course you need to retrain all pilots post illness/injury. The common trope re female pilots is that we cost a fortune to retrain post pregnancy. That is a big assumption that all women want to have babies. Here's a kicker. We don't. Yes, women get cancer and have heart attacks. I didn't say we didn't.
Dumb statement? How many men have been asked "are you going to have children?" at a job interview? Yep, illegal question. However, I was asked this question 3 times in one job interview for a Qantas regional back in mid 1999.

Fortunately the percentage of females learning to fly in the UK has begun to increase which is great news for flying schools. To be honest, the flying schools need all the competent students they can get. The number of competent people learning to fly is quite low, especially compared to the 1980s. It's so dire in the UK some airlines (British Airways) have even opened up funded cadet schemes.

Any campaign that attracts a wider audience is a good thing. So long as it's not at the expense of competency. I don't condone lowering the bar or having quotas. Shining a light on a previously unknown career option is useful - for every one.

I'm in the 'it takes a village' camp. Only women can bear children, so women have different needs as far as time away from the workplace goes. So if you're in business, plan and allocate accordingly. It's a cost that society needs to bear. If you want more young taxpayers to support your boomer retirement, then you're gunna have to pay. In this case, if airfares have to go up $0.73 to cover, then so be it. Couldn't give a hoot if the pilot population is 50/50 and all of them want children. If that's the case it will actually create more pilot jobs.

Comparing it however to men having heart attacks :rolleyes:

There are plenty of woman in aviation but they are usually on the other end of the microphone. The biggest problem with being a pilot in the current age is the rostering and its family unfriendly expectations. I have flown with female pilots who really struggle with the demands of the roster once they have children. I have also flown with plenty of male F/O's who find the rostering difficult but it is rarely to the point that they consider giving flying away. ATC however doesn't seem to have quite the same problems. If the government and the airlines want to attract more females then they have to make the "work-life balance" statements actually mean something. Getting rid of some of the HR pilot haters would be a good start.