Did you know?
Women make up 42% of aviation employees in Europe, but a much lower percentage in technical roles.
Relevance to aviation
Aviation is working to achieve gender balance across the sector. However, the industry is aware that work is still needed to encourage balance in technical areas such as engineering and flight crew.
According to ICAO, around 5.1% of positions such as pilots, air traffic controllers and maintenance technicians were held by women in 2021, compared to 4.5% globally in 2016. During the same period, the percentage of women pilots in service increased from 3.6% to 4.0% and that of female aircraft maintenance engineers rose from 2.7% to 3.%. The number of female air traffic controllers remained stable globally at around 20.6%.
More work needs to be done to encourage interest from young women to join technical areas and men to join frontline staff.
Examples of action
- In 2019, IATA launched the 25by2025 global initiative to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion, emphasising the significance of adopting best practices to foster gender balance in the aviation sector. Between 2021 to 2022, the signatories counted over 1,000 new female pilots (+25%) and 28% of women in senior roles versus 24% in 2021.
- In March 2024, the Malaysia Aviation Group exceeded its target as part of the 25by2025 goals by achieving a 34% overall participation of women in its workforce, with women holding 50% of senior management roles and 44% of middle management positions.
- Alaska Airlines has achieved gender parity among its independent board directors, of which more than 50% are women.
- The International Aviation Women’s Association exists to promote air transport as a career choice for women, and support their advancement in the industry.
- Air India and Vistara Airlines in India both offer female passengers special services to ensure they are free from harassment. The services, which include a women-only row of seats or no middle seating for female passengers, have proved popular amongst customers and are free-of-charge.
- GE has a specific programme of action called Cultivate, to develop and retain women engineers in the business. It also achieved a 50:50 gender parity in 2016 for its Edison Engineering Development Program.
- Airlines such as British Airways are ensuring that gender equality is one of their central aims in promoting diversity among the workforce, particularly in leadership positions.
- Airbus promotes gender equality through a number of programmes aimed at inspiring women and young girls to become involved with aviation.
- ICAO supports the 'Dreams Soar' project, which saw the first Afghan-American female pilot, Shaesta Waiz, embark on a solo round-the-world flight in 2017, to encourage more young women to become pilots.
Learn more in the Flying in Formation report