THE SKY'S THE LIMIT

How international airlines and initiatives are helping women in aviation to soar

- STORY BY JACLYN TROP

I try to invite as many females into the flight deck as possible,” says Gabrielle Harding, a Boeing 737 captain and line-check pilot for United Airlines based in Newark, New Jersey. “I’ve had little girls come up to me and say, ‘I didn’t think that I could do it, but now that I see you here, I want to be a pilot.’ ” Women have long been visible in the aisles of commercial aircraft—comprising nearly 80 percent of flight attendants—but the numbers nosedive when it comes to the cockpit or C-suite.

That’s beginning to change, with female CEOs now leading major carriers including Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, JetBlue, Japan Airlines, Qantas, Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Virgin Australia and RwandAir. Their example illustrates a viable career path for girls interested in commercial aviation, while the initiatives they’re implementing are helping to promote gender parity by bringing more women into the fold.

Still, there is a long way to go. Women remain vastly underrepresented in commercial aviation’s leadership ranks, holding just 14 percent of senior executive roles, with only six percent of chief executive and chief operating officer roles filled by women, according to IATA data.

The numbers are equally dismal in the cockpit. Today, only eight percent of commercial airline pilots in the U.S. are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Women in Aviation Advisory Board report puts the percentage of female captains such as Harding at just 3.6 percent.

It’s not hard to understand why women are less likely to pursue a career in commercial aviation. Entering a male-dominated industry comes with systemic challenges. Harding, the first Black female line-check pilot on United’s Boeing fleet, was the only female student in her flight education program at Hampton University and, since joining the workforce, has often been the only woman in the room.