Sky is the limit for Indian women

Men aren’t leading the game anymore. At least not in the sky where women are everyday proving their strength. In a country where safety of women can’t be ensured in a cab in the capital city of the country, Indian women are putting their mettle seating in the cockpit.

According to ministry of civil aviation data, India currently has 5,100 pilots, of which 600, or 11.7 %, are women. There are a total 130,000 pilots in the world, of which 4,000, or about 3 % , are women, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots, as per a news report in The Economic Times,.

"This is definitely one trend which flies in the face of global opinion of India as a regressive place for women," Harpreet Singh Dey, president of the Indian Women Pilots' Association told The Economic Times. She's also the first female pilot to operate an international flight by a local carrier, Air India, in 1988. Families are willing to back girls who want to pursue the profession even regardless of whether they're married or not, she said.

"Flying schools are churning out a higher number of women pilots every year. There are many families who are supportive of a woman's career choice as a pilot even after marriage. There are also many women who would happily remain single to follow their passion," Dey said.
Of the 1,100 pilot licences issued in India in 2014, about 170 were to women, an increase of 5 % from the year earlier.
The number of female pilots in SpiceJet is 15 per cent of the total, said chief operating officer Sanjiv Kapoor, up from 11-12 % two years ago.

"It is a gradual growth. I think it mirrors the increasing numbers of women in the professional workforce as old ways of thinking change," he said. "Parents are also likely more supportive, employers are more gender neutral."

Jet Airways has a pilot force that's 14 per cent women, compared with 12.5 per cent two years ago, said a spokesperson. Between January 2013 and May 2015, 42 female pilots joined the airline, around 15 per cent of the total pilot intake in that period.

At IndiGo airlines, 168, or 11 %t of its 1,448 pilots, are women.
According to a media report last year, British Airways has about 3,500 pilots, of which 200, or 5 % , are women.

Opportunities for women in the Indian airline industry, once restricted to cabin crew and ground staff, have expanded in only the last few years. Durba Banerjee, India's first woman commercial pilot in 1956, captained a Fokker F27 Friendship in 1966. But the next time a woman became captain was two decades later, when Saudamini Deshmukh became the first to command a Boeing 737. Later, she also became Airbus A320 commander.

Dey recalls that conditions during her training period weren't always optimal.

"I was in Hisar, Haryana, and here were no women's hostels," she said. "I had to share with men. In my later years I often slept with a knife under my pillow to be safe."

The times have changed dramatically since then, Dey said. Airlines now have special contract clauses designed specially for women pilots.

"In the field of 24/7 work, mothers here get to choose a Sunday or Saturday off to spend with their kids," Bavicca Bharathi, a pilot and line training captain with IndiGo told the ET. Bharathi holds records for being India's youngest pilot licence holder at 18 in 2007 and also its youngest commander three years later. "We also have flexible contracts providing a variety of options such as 40 hours of flying per month or two weeks off for two weeks of flying. We also have a creche at the training centre for new mothers."

She said however that long breaks are a problem as certifications tend to lapse.

"Even after a break of 30 days, 'recency' checks are required to get back," she said. After maternity leave of a year or so, women would have to undertake ground classes and simulator checks all over again.

At IndiGo, 44 % of the total workforce and a third of its leadership constitutes women. That ratio is even more balanced at India's newest carrier.
"At Vistara, we have a healthy gender ratio of around 50:50 and have observed that women employees play a key role in creating a competitive edge for the business," S Varadarajan, head of human resources and corporate affairs at the carrier, a joint venture between the Tata group and Singapore Airlines that started flying in January, told the financial daily.