So it goes that at a major airline interview in the 1990s, there included this scenario-based question: “You just arrived at the gate after a five-leg trip about 4:30 p.m. The captain asks ‘How about meeting the crew and me for dinner? I’ll pick you up in the hotel lobby at 6:30.’ You say ‘Sure!’ You arrive at the lobby precisely at 6:30 and, to your surprise, you see the captain exiting the elevator wearing a dress. What do you say?”
Pause. Pause again. You repress a grin, maybe a smirk, as your mind envisions a cross-dresser making his way into the lobby. Of course, the correct answer is, “Gosh, Jane, that is a great-looking dress!”
The captain is a lady. Legend has it that more than a few tripped up on this question. Why is that? The perception was that professional airline flying is a “man’s world” and only males make captain.
Even today, however, female airline pilots are relatively scarce. The best statistics available indicate that, of the more than 53,000 members of the Air Line Pilots Association, women make up only 5 percent of the membership. The best guess from the International Society of Women Airline Pilots claims fewer than 500 women are airline captains in the entire world. These are dismal numbers for a society bent on equality across all industries. But, it’s not for lack of trying. Chris Dancy, a former spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, was quoted by CNN saying, “Getting more women involved in all aspects of aviation is a nut that everyone in the industry would like to crack but that no one to date has.” And why is that?
Jo Halverson, who flies for United Airlines and has mentored many young women throughout her career, attempts to get a handle on the reasons. “At United, there are only about 700 female pilots flying the friendly skies out of a pilot population of more than 7,000, which makes the airline home to the most female aviators in the business. But, while doctors and lawyers have seen surges in females entering their professions, the same is not the case with aviation. Some of the reasons are the same for males and females—money is the top reason—but I think it’s also a very difficult profession to be in if you want to balance your life with family. I was a single mother at one point. When I look back, I’m not sure how I managed to survive. It’s that hard.”
Angela Masson, a retired American Airlines captain, tends to agree that women in general seem to shy away from a career path that is stressful, male dominated, requires lots of expensive and continual training, takes them away from home for long periods of time, and makes it challenging to raise a family. Masson says, “I suppose if the job were just concerned about flying, there would be a lot more women. But, the job isn’t just about flying. It’s wrapped up in a whole lot of other unappealing circumstances—unappealing to women who may not have the drive, ambition, financial means, or the family/network to pursue flying as a career. Flying has to be something that you really, really want because, even gender issues aside, it’s a very challenging and demanding career.”
The low interest in aviation by females is reflected in college aviation programs. At Florida Institute of Technology, about 10 percent of aviation students are women, according to Professor Victoria Dunbar. The same holds true at the University of Illinois, where Dr. Tom Emanuel, acting director of the Institute of Aviation, says, “At our peak a few years ago, we saw female enrollment in the aviation program at about 20 percent. Now, despite our best efforts at recruitment, we are at about 10 percent.”
Patti Keen, flight operations coordinator at Purdue University, claims a slightly higher percentage of women aviation students, with 15 percent. “We do a significant amount of outreach through career camps and industry involvement, which has paid off for us through increased diversity in enrollments of both females and minorities.”
What about the “good-old-boy-club” factor? The best sense is that psychological barriers put up by dominating male captains have disappeared. Masson says that, during her 31 years at American, she experienced some “pushback” from some “old school” male captains who made it clear that they were not thrilled about flying with her. But, once she made captain, that kind of attitude dissipated.
The phenomenon of female disinterest in professional flying as a personal career track is the subject of a study commissioned by the Wolf Aviation Fund Teaching Women to Fly Research Project. Its report, based on extensive interviews, concludes there are 10 major barriers that women face:
1. Lack of money for general aviation flight training.
2. Instructor-student communication incompatibility.
3. Instructor interruptus, when instructors leave flight training to take airline or charter jobs, often requiring the student to start over with another instructor. This is time consuming, expensive, and discouraging to many female students.
4. Lack of female mentors and support systems.
5. Personal lack of confidence in their ability and a “fear of flying,” especially of stalling the airplane too early in the training process.
6. Lack of experience with and knowledge of mechanical systems.
7. Lack of map reading experience and orienteering skill sets.
8. Flight schools perceived as indifferent to female students.
9. Famous female pilots largely unknown as role models to non-aviator women.
10. Lack of emotional support from family and friends who perceive flying as “too dangerous.”
With the impending pilot shortage, women can be a partial solution as the pool of eligible professional pilots is drained to a precariously low level. Perhaps more than anything, the pursuit of the professional pilot career track must make sense to female high school and college students as they go about the business of choosing a career.
Of course, there are upsides to airline life after a decade or more, such as great pay of $100,000 plus and many days off monthly. But, in the difficult-to-overlook near term, investing time and incredible sums of money for a job that starts at $22,000 per year; that requires living out of hotels week in and week out, which may be unappealing to anyone, regardless of gender.
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