Lufthansa, Women of Aviation Worldwide to boost female pilots

German flag carrier Lufthansa has become the first airline to join the Institute for Women Of Aviation Worldwide. The airline will work with the institute to attract more female pilots for its passenger and cargo fleet.

Lufthansa is aware of the common misconception among women that the job might not be for them. It reported that only 20 percent of all applications were women. It will work with the institute to change that perception and encourage the airline industry to use messaging and outreach to become more female friendly.

“We welcome Lufthansa’s leadership among airlines as it joins our efforts to deliberately shift the message in order to grow the female pilot population,” said Mireille Goyer, founder and president of the Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide. “Our advocacy was born from the observation that years of addressing the low levels of female participation as a financial issue using scholarships have failed to move the trends and from the knowledge that numerous independent studies point to a perception issue instead.”

Lufthansa was the first airline in the world to hire a female pilot when Marga von Etzdorf came aboard in 1928. She flew passengers on the Berlin-Breslau and Berlin-Stuttgart-Basel routes in Junkers F-13 aircraft.