Today's airline pilots: Female Captain aged 26 with F/O 19 years old
 

While many wish to write "young high-flyer" on their CV, for Kate McWilliams it's simply a matter of fact.

Aged just 26, the easyJet pilot is believed to be the youngest in the world to become a commercial airline captain.

On one recent flight, she and her co-pilot had a combined age of just 45.

The recently-promoted Miss McWilliams flew last week from Gatwick to Malta alongside Luke Elsworth, who earlier this year became the UK's youngest pilot at 19 years old.

Experience in Europe in those airlines , with multi sectors days, in difficult weather is something else than our long, straight and level, back seat operations for years.

26 is not too young to be a captain, isn't it normal to have dash 8's and ATR's flying around with 50 or so pax with mid 20 yo captains and even younger FO's. Can't see why flying a jet is any different.
Good on her!!

22 year olds used to fly bomber missions over Germany. 26 is not that young...

Erich Hartmann was 23 and a Major at the end of WWII.

352 Air Victories.

Was Erich Hartmann or WWII bomber pilots civilian international airline captains at the age of 26 or F/Os at the age of 19? How many during the 60's, 70's or 80's?

It was a completely different job, status, pay and CoS, that came with a wealth of experience.

Against Russians. He never would have had that many on the western front.

Funny how we assimilate being older with being a better more capable Pilot.

Some old guys I fly with should do our passengers a favour and retired long ago...Just saying

"Against Russians. He never would have had that many on the western front."

Somehow I knew someone would come up with that crap.
Those inferior Russians, right ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...II_flying_aces

I count 10 fighter pilots from the Soviet Union well in front of a certain Mr. Bong from the US of A way down on that list as the first non Russian Allied fighter ace.

Hans-Joachim Marseille was Germany's leading ace against western allied forces with 158 Air Victories when he died in 1942. That would equate to 316 Air Victories until 1945 in theory.

Western Arrogance of self seen superiority against the rest of the world never fails to amaze me.
The truth, however, looks slightly different.

Especially nowadays, with the Not So United States and the Not So United Kingdom as dying/dead beacons of western dominance over the world for the last few centuries.

Flight Deck combined experience
 

I thought the trend would have been to have a more experienced first officer flying with a newly promoted captain rather than a newly promoted 26 year old captain flying with a 19 year old first officer with only one year experience
In any event congratulations to such a high flyer who hasn't hit any glass ceiling ....

Napoleon made that mistake, then (luckily for us!) Hitler did too... if history teaches anything, it's to leave the Russians alone!

There were at least two in Southeast Asia ( A320 one female, one male ) younger than her .when they got their Commands .

There were younger in Europe 20 years ago.

Youth and inexperience make a great airline pilot and much cheaper too, win win

Old saying but still valid -
"if you're good enough - you're old enough".
As she said to the Daily Telegraph today - "I've done the same training and completed the same Command Course as any other EJ captain. What's age got to do with it?"
Bloody well done to both of them.

Well done to both. However, it is naive to think that this crew has the same overall 'safety' margin as a more experienced crew. I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I still learn something new almost every flight. You can't 'teach' experience, and you only develop the brain trust of knowledge and intuition over a long career. Qualified, yes. Experienced, no. No getting around that fact, and the risk factor rises accordingly.

Ronald Reagan: 'I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience'

What sort of hours would they have? (Understanding of course that 6000 hours of long haul sectors != 6000 of short sectors)

I was a Part 121 jet captain at 25. What do I win?

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