Women in Aviation
Women in Aviation: Rising to New Heights
May 1998, page 10, Air Line Pilot
By Teresa Mattick, Staff Writer
Annual conference highlights the achievements and the struggles of women in aviation.
Emily Howell became the first woman pilot to fly for a scheduled U.S. carrier in the modern jet age and the first female pilot member of the Air Line Pilots Association 25 years ago. To understand how much some things have changed since Frontier Airlines hired Emily as a second officer in 1973, consider the article Air Line Pilot published that year reporting on her new career.
After a lengthy description of Emily’s aviation experience, which had included some 14 years and 7,000 hours of flying, the article goes on to describe Emily’s physical appearance: “Neat with attractive sun-bleached hair and slender, but curvaceous enough to fill out her newly designed, charcoal gray uniform in all the right places.” And Emily’s newly designed cap? “We’re not sure about that yet,” she said.
The same article includes Emily’s prediction for the future. “It won’t be long before there are other women flying for the airlines,” she had said in 1973.
Emily was right. Thousands of women have followed in her footsteps and are now flying as airline pilots in the United States and Canada. Today women are also astronauts, air traffic controllers, aeronautical engineers, and aircraft mechanics; and for the first time in history, a woman heads the Federal Aviation Administration.
No longer is a woman pilot’s uniform a matter of public speculation and comment. But, as FAA Administrator Jane Garvey pointed out recently, “When you look at the percentages, you realize that as far as women have come in aviation, we still have a long way to go.”
According to 1996 statistics, only about 2.6 percent of the air transport pilot certificate holders in the United States are women. Women account for about 5.8 percent of the private pilots and 4.25 percent of commercial pilots. In other areas of aviation, women represent about 15 percent of air traffic controllers and aerospace engineers and about 1.2 percent of maintenance technicians.
These numbers show that, despite the major progress that women have made in entering into and succeeding in aviation, they are still a minority. For 3 days in March, however, women in aviation were the overwhelming majority as pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers, instructors, managers, mechanics, government workers, and others gathered in Denver, Colo., for the annual International Women in Aviation conference and convention.
Rising to new heights
Women in Aviation, International (WAI), an organization dedicated to encouraging and assisting women in aviation careers, held its first conference in 1990, when 150 people attended the event. Participation and support for the conference has grown steadily, but this year’s conference surpassed all expectations with more than 2,100 people attending.
“The record-setting participation in terms of attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, and scholarships symbolizes the theme for the 1998 conference—Rising to New Heights,” said the conference’s director and founder, Dr. Peggy Baty. This year’s attendance was a significant increase from just the year before, when the conference attracted about 1,600 participants and 80 exhibitors to Dallas, Tex.
“This year we had been hoping to have 100 exhibitors—we’d have been satisfied with that,” Dr. Baty said.
With 121 exhibitors this year, the conference surpassed its ambitious goal, and the exhibition hall was packed with representatives from airlines, manufacturers, colleges and universities, government agencies, and other organizations, including ALPA.
Another indication of the conference’s increasing prominence is the support that Women in Aviation receives from corporate sponsors. Some 40 sponsors, from airlines to avionics manufacturers, helped contribute to the conference’s success, Baty explained.
Two of the conference’s largest sponsors, United Airlines and Jeppesen, not only sponsored special social events, but the companies also opened up their Denver facilities for tours during the conference.
The conference also included a range of safety, career, lifestyle, and other seminars and workshops covering topics as diverse as “Building Your Own Airplane” to “Balancing Your Life, Family, and Career.”
Firsts and foremosts
Women who are at the top in their aviation fields and women who are firsts in their fields were among the speakers and guests at the Denver conference. In addition to FAA Administrator Garvey, other notable speakers included Martha King, the first woman to hold every class of pilot rating and every flight and ground instructor rating; Bonnie Gibson Hill, president and chief executive officer of The Times Mirror Foundation and vice-president of The Times Mirror Company, which owns the Jeppesen-Sanderson Co.; Bonnie Dunbar, a NASA astronaut with almost 1,000 hours in space; and Carroll Suggs, president and chief executive officer of Petroleum Helicopters, Inc.
Suggs was named president of Petroleum Helicopters in 1990 and CEO in 1994. At that time, most of the company’s business involved supporting oil-drilling operations. “In the early 1990s, the oil industry was in trouble—business as usual would not be effective,” Suggs said.
Suggs spoke with pride of her accomplishments in improving the financial and organizational structure of the world’s largest helicopter services company, but she was obviously proudest of effecting changes to improve the company’s already exemplary accident, incident, and injury rate.
When Petroleum Helicopters formed a special study team in 1991 to examine the company’s safety practices, Suggs said that there seemed to be an “us vs. them—pilots vs. mechanics” attitude within the company.
“But the truth is, every flight is evidence of the trust we put in each other,” Suggs said. “Teamwork has made the aircraft as safe as humanly possible.”
Inspirations
Women other than those who have reached the top in their fields were also able to inspire the audience to reach for new heights in aviation. First Officer Gwendolyn Moxey (Bahamasair), for example, spoke of her struggle to become an airline pilot.
“My journey was difficult,” F/O Moxey said. She described growing up on a tiny, isolated island 220 miles southeast of Nassau. “We had a small aircraft that came in once a month to bring a doctor and the island commissioner,” she said. She knew what she wanted to be when she grew up by observing the airplane’s pilot.
“When I told my Mom, she looked at me as if I was crazy. She said, ‘You can’t do that,’ but I held onto my dream.”
F/O Moxey worked at a fast food job for 5 years to pay for her flight instruction. Just as she had saved enough money to finish her course and the day before she was scheduled to leave, she was in a car accident. “It took me 7 weeks to recover, and by that time all my money was gone, and I had to go back to work.”
But she persevered and finally earned her commercial pilot certificate. “The feeling was unbelievable,” she said.
Before joining Bahamasair 3 years ago, where today she is one of four women out of 77 pilots, F/O Moxey worked for a couple of years at a small charter company. “My boss there was a little bit old-fashioned,” she recalls. “He wouldn’t let me fly in bad weather.” Fortunately, the Bahamas doesn’t have a lot of bad weather.
“One day a man walked into the office,” she said. “He was introduced as a pilot. He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not flying with her—she’s a woman.’ It had never occurred to me that I couldn’t fly.
“Sometimes, it’s still difficult, but mostly the men are adjusting,” she added.
Looking to the future
Although women today make up only about 6 percent of all pilots in the United States, statistics show that about 12 percent of current student pilots are women. Many of these young women are tomorrow’s airline pilots.
“When I graduated from high school, airlines didn’t have a single female pilot,” Capt. Sherri Phillips Maple (Southwest) said. The first generation of women pilots had no role models. So one of the major goals of WAI is to provide the role models, support, and resources that students need to reach the airlines.
Through the support of WAI sponsors and supporters, Women in Aviation has awarded $284,000 in scholarships to deserving young women, and a record number of aviation students and faculty members from 37 aviation colleges and universities attended the conference.
Several of the conference panels and workshops focused on the practical aspects of becoming an airline pilot. Judy Tarver, president of the Universal Pilot Application Service, told the audience that the aviation industry is booming and that the airlines have many opportunities for both men and women.
Sandy Anderson, a Northwest Airlines B-747 captain and Women in Aviation vice-president, introduced a panel of women airline pilots and human resources representatives who presented an overview of airline pilot careers.
The airline careers panels were some of the most popular sessions during the conference. Much of the discussion focused on general piloting and career issues, such as dealing with a bad reference or correctly logging flight time. But several speakers addressed issues specific to women pilots, such as flying while pregnant and working with men who think that women don’t belong in the cockpit.
As one pilot pointed out, “When women are 93 percent of the pilot group, maybe we won’t need to have forums to talk about these issues.”
Looking to the past
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Her pioneering adventures made her an aviation legend—a hero of the 20th century. Her accomplishments helped build the foundation upon which today’s women in aviation have stood to reach their own new heights.
“It’s appropriate to acknowledge women pioneers in aviation,” Garvey said. “We are all standing on a foundation built by their actions.”
Earhart, however, is only one brick in the foundation. Another goal for Women in Aviation is to recognize the contributions of the many other women whose names aren’t famous but whose accomplishments are as important in inspiring and leading other women into aviation.
WAI has inducted individuals and groups into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame since 1992. Garvey recognized the following 1998 inductees into the Hall of Fame:
• Loretta Jones has been a licensed pilot since 1957. Her 40-year aviation career has included aerobatics to wing walking to piloting a blimp. She is devoted to helping open the way for more flying opportunities and has instructed nearly 1,000 student pilots, including the first female pilot at United Airlines.
• Jacqueline Smith was a Navy-trained air traffic controller who, during her 30-year career, helped many other women enter the ATC field. In 1968, she co-founded the Professional Women Controllers, Inc. Her career culminated in her being the first woman regional administrator in the FAA.
• The Whirly Girls, Inc., was organized in 1955, when there were only 13 women helicopter pilots in the world. Today, the organization includes more than 1,055 people from 29 countries. The Whirly Girls promotes and supports women helicopter pilots.
• Harriet Quimby, a prolific writer and journalist and the first licensed female pilot in the United States, earned her license in 1911. At the time, Quimby predicted, “The airplane should open a fruitful occupation for women. I see no reason why they cannot realize handsome incomes by carrying passengers between adjacent towns, delivering parcels, taking photographs, or conducting schools of flying.”
These women join the two dozen past Hall of Fame inductees, including ALPA’s first woman pilot member, Emily Howell, who is now Capt. Emily Warner, a veteran of Frontier, Continental, and UPS. Today she is an FAA official in Denver in charge of monitoring most of United’s B-737s. She is also a WAI member who attended the Denver conference to help other women rise to new heights in their own aviation careers.
Sidebar:
Women in Aviation, International
Thanks to the growing success of what began as a small conference in 1990, Women in Aviation, International, has evolved into a dynamic professional organization supporting members from all facets of airline, corporate, private, and military aviation.
Conference founder, Dr. Peggy Baty, a long-time aviation enthusiast, commercial/instrument pilot, and professional educator, started the first conference and has been instrumental in creating the international forum for women in aviation.
The interest sparked by the early conferences led to the group’s incorporation as a nonprofit organization in 1994. At that time, the WAI had about 100 individual members and 5 corporate members. Today membership has reached more than 2,500 women and men, including some 80 corporate members.
Dr. Baty became the WAI’s president and first full-time executive employee in 1996 and moved the WAI headquarters to Morningstar Airport outside of Dayton, Ohio. Women in Aviation welcomes women and men from all aviation backgrounds—students, pilots, flight attendants, aeronautical engineers, maintenance technicians, air traffic controllers, and anybody else interested in encouraging women to seek opportunities in aviation. For more information about Women in Aviation, International, write to Women in Aviation, Morningstar Airport, 3647 S.R. 503 S., West Alexandria, OH 45381. The web page address is http://www.wiai.org.
