Women In Air Cargo: Winds of Change
The Stat Trade Times|March 2017

Winds of change are blowing across the air cargo sector from past few years in terms of diverse workforce. The sector has not yet completely achieved the goal of fading gender stereotypes and looking at diversity in talent management. However, it is slowly getting there.

Twinkle Sahita
Women In Air Cargo: Winds of Change

The year 2010 witnessed a major change in the worldwide air cargo sector when a Lufthansa cargo aircraft took off with a women-only crew.

On March 8, 2016, five flights of the Lufthansa Group with 63 female and one male crew member departed Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva, Vienna, and Brussels for New York. Lufthansa, SWISS, and Brussels Airlines flights had women-only crews, while on Austrian Airlines flight OS087, all but one crew member was female.

Women employed at Emirates come from diverse backgrounds and work across the entire spectrum of Emirates’ operations. Over 18,000 work as cabin crew, while the rest are represented across technical as well as in professional and leadership roles. Close to 2.5 percent of the total female staff occupy managerial positions in the airline, and women are also increasingly working and advancing in functions that were more traditionally represented by men.

This year’s Air Cargo Africa edition also witnessed many women participating as speakers on the panel, compared to previous editions. Ergo, the idea of diverse workforce has been increasingly gaining momentum in logistics industry, especially the air cargo sector. diversity in talent management has been a hot topic discussed quiet often by companies in recent years. Though discussed quiet often, the sector still remains male dominated. There are less women in positions of leadership in the sector.

In aviation, cargo is less glamorous than the passenger segment of the business, gets lower exposure and is considered less attractive. The night working hours may also not be very conducive to many, especially those with young children, and there is no overnight leap to success. A lot of it is sheer hard work, and just the utter joy of seeing an aircraft take wing every night, on time, with the maximum revenue load.

This story is from the March 2017 edition of The Stat Trade Times.

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This story is from the March 2017 edition of The Stat Trade Times.

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