There is a ritual of flying- that the moment you get yourself buckled into seat, the
loudspeaker gets into life with a familiar dialogue, “Hello, this is your captain
speaking. Welcome aboard.” Now the question is, how many times of your travelling
experience has that voice belong to a female? For most fliers, the answer would be
either never or a very few times.
There are many females working in the Aviation industry across the globe yet males
still dominate when it comes to set carrier as a pilot.
There are approx. 4000 female pilots working worldwide which is not even 5% of total
strength of pilots. According to a study by the international Society of Women Airline
Pilots, India estimated to have 11% female pilots compared to the world average of 5%
which seems better. However the question remains the same. Why that is happening
even after 80 years of Helen Richey became the first female pilot of commercial
airline? Answer to this question could be involvement of money, training, awareness
about career option, job realities and so on. Let’s discuss it a bit more.
When someone decides to pursue flying as a career, the first thing which matters a lot
here is money. When going through the civilian route, it can cost approx. INR 4000000
in training to become an airline pilot. In India we have a tradition of not spending
much money on girl’s education rather saving it for her marriage. Discrimination
against girls are from ages. It’s not like only our country is facing this sociological
problem rather this gender based discrimination is pervasive across the world. So I
guess this is the strong reason behind less numbers of female pilots.
Now if I research that money is the only reason behind less number of women in the
cockpit then I find probably not. Thought this is one of the major reasons however I
find dearth of awareness plays an important role here. Whenever a girl thinks about
making career in aviation she will opt for either Air hostess or ground staff service. In
my career as a business developer with Ahmedabad Aviation & Aeronautics Ltd., I
have experienced about only 10% of the trainee pilots in a batch are women. And I
find most of them have something in common: a family member or friend who flew
and showed her it was possible at early age. When I discussed it with many instructors
they said that female pilots are excellent. There is nothing like a particular skill or
knowledge that guys are better at. Here I guess a lot of women just don’t think about
it as a career field.
Though the number is constantly changing and thankfully growing in our country and
figures suggest that India seems to be one place where women are indeed working
hard towards making that dream of pink paper plane flying come true. Nevertheless
the long working hours, stress and the pressure to deliver safely at all cost, it's not a
job that they would want exchanged for any other. But all that changes the moment
they realize they are pregnant. They have no choice but go grounded or take long
without pay leaves of 18 months throughout the maternity period which is actually
very sad.
Very few women even view it as a job option at the first place because it is not all
about flying only, it is wrapped up in a whole lot of other unappealing circumstances,
unappealing especially to women who may not have the drive, ambition, financial
means or the network support to pursue flying as a career.
loudspeaker gets into life with a familiar dialogue, “Hello, this is your captain
speaking. Welcome aboard.” Now the question is, how many times of your travelling
experience has that voice belong to a female? For most fliers, the answer would be
either never or a very few times.
There are many females working in the Aviation industry across the globe yet males
still dominate when it comes to set carrier as a pilot.
There are approx. 4000 female pilots working worldwide which is not even 5% of total
strength of pilots. According to a study by the international Society of Women Airline
Pilots, India estimated to have 11% female pilots compared to the world average of 5%
which seems better. However the question remains the same. Why that is happening
even after 80 years of Helen Richey became the first female pilot of commercial
airline? Answer to this question could be involvement of money, training, awareness
about career option, job realities and so on. Let’s discuss it a bit more.
When someone decides to pursue flying as a career, the first thing which matters a lot
here is money. When going through the civilian route, it can cost approx. INR 4000000
in training to become an airline pilot. In India we have a tradition of not spending
much money on girl’s education rather saving it for her marriage. Discrimination
against girls are from ages. It’s not like only our country is facing this sociological
problem rather this gender based discrimination is pervasive across the world. So I
guess this is the strong reason behind less numbers of female pilots.
Now if I research that money is the only reason behind less number of women in the
cockpit then I find probably not. Thought this is one of the major reasons however I
find dearth of awareness plays an important role here. Whenever a girl thinks about
making career in aviation she will opt for either Air hostess or ground staff service. In
my career as a business developer with Ahmedabad Aviation & Aeronautics Ltd., I
have experienced about only 10% of the trainee pilots in a batch are women. And I
find most of them have something in common: a family member or friend who flew
and showed her it was possible at early age. When I discussed it with many instructors
they said that female pilots are excellent. There is nothing like a particular skill or
knowledge that guys are better at. Here I guess a lot of women just don’t think about
it as a career field.
Though the number is constantly changing and thankfully growing in our country and
figures suggest that India seems to be one place where women are indeed working
hard towards making that dream of pink paper plane flying come true. Nevertheless
the long working hours, stress and the pressure to deliver safely at all cost, it's not a
job that they would want exchanged for any other. But all that changes the moment
they realize they are pregnant. They have no choice but go grounded or take long
without pay leaves of 18 months throughout the maternity period which is actually
very sad.
Very few women even view it as a job option at the first place because it is not all
about flying only, it is wrapped up in a whole lot of other unappealing circumstances,
unappealing especially to women who may not have the drive, ambition, financial
means or the network support to pursue flying as a career.
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