{"id":25068,"date":"2023-03-12T14:27:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T14:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=25068"},"modified":"2023-03-12T14:32:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T14:32:15","slug":"celebrating-50-years-of-women-airline-pilots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/national-news\/celebrating-50-years-of-women-airline-pilots\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 50 Years of Women Airline Pilots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – Female airline pilots continue to make aviation history. Here Captain Holly Petitt on Southwest Airlines flight deck with her daughter, First Officer, Keely Petitt. A first mother-daughter flight crew for the airline on August 5, 2022. (Courtesy Southwest Airlines, Schelly Stone)<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

January, 1973, was an historic month in our nation\u2019s history\nwith the end of the Vietnam War. That same month in our airline history,\nFrontier Airlines hired Denver\u2019s Clinton Aviation Chief Flight Instructor,\nEmily Howell, as their first female airline pilot. An action which literally\nmade world news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on February 6, 1973, Emily\u2019s first thought was the\ncardinal rule of every aviator, \u201cfly the plane.\u201d She focused on what she knew\nso well as a 7,000 hour pilot and flight instructor with multiple ratings.\nBeing the first woman anything is a difficult burden because unfairly your\nsuccess or failure reflects on all women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mead & Hunt<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Because Emily was Frontier\u2019s first female pilot, they did\nnot have a uniform for her. Ever resourceful, Emily hired a Denver seamstress.\nAs she slipped her arm through the custom-made airline pilot jacket, her mind\nmomentarily flashed to Jackie Cochran and her specially-made Santiago blue\nWomen Airforce Service Pilot uniforms because the U.S. Army Air Corps did not\nhave uniforms for women pilots. Emily felt even more confidence knowing the WWII\nWASP blazed sky trails before her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passengers headed to Stapleton airport to catch the historic\nFrontier Boeing 737 flying to Las Vegas might have heard Carly Simon singing the\nnumber one song, \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain\u201d or even Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cSuperstition.\u201d Many\nwere unaware their scheduled flight would be recorded in aviation history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Emily reached the boarding gate, she heard the commotion\nfrom all the media members gathered at the bottom of the flight stairs to record\nthis special moment of the first female airline pilot in modern time. (In 1934,\nHelen Richey had tried to break into commercial aviation with an airline.\nHowever, she was not allowed to join the Air Line Pilots Association and the\nFederal Aviation authorities restricted her airline flights.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily took a deep breath, smiled, and began climbing the\nstairs up to the Boeing cabin. Emily could hear the click of cameras\ndocumenting aviation history. One of the reporters yelled for her to stop and\nlook back at them. She dutifully obliged. When she finally was quietly situated\non the flight deck, the Frontier Flight eventually became airborne. The Air\nControllers along their flight path all congratulated Emily and Frontier as\nthey flew to Las Vegas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this one flight, Emily Howell smashed the glass ceiling\nof the sex-segregated airline flight decks in the United States forever. Not\nlong after, American Airlines hired Bonnie Tiburzi as their first female pilot.\nConcurrently, the young Tiburzi became the first woman in the world to earn a\nFlight Engineer rating on a turbo-jet aircraft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(L-R) Airline Captains, Terry London Rinehart and Emily Warner, both charter members of the International Society of Women Airline Pilots (ISA+21), celebrate the dedication of Emily Warner Field in July, 2015, inside the Grand County Historical Association aviation museum. (Photographer Penny Hamilton) <\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Slowly, more women joined airline flight crews. In late,\n1975, Stephanie Wallach was hired by Braniff Airways. The following year, Terry\nLondon Rinehart and Valerie Jene Walker flew for Western Airlines. Hughes\nAirwest hired Mary Bush Shipko. American added Angela Masson and Beverley Bass\nto their airline pilot ranks. By the end of 1976 twenty-two women were flying for\nU.S. Airlines. That year Emily Howell Warner was upgraded to become our first\nfemale Airline Captain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1978, the International Society of Women Airline Pilots\n(ISA+21) was founded. In 1979, Lt. Lynn Spruill became the first female U.S.\nNaval aviator to be carrier qualified. In 1985, Spruill would go on to become\none of the first six female Delta Air Lines hires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Southwest Airlines Corporate Historian, Richard\nWest, their first female airline pilot was Cathy Jones in May, 1982. In a 1997,\nWoman Pilot<\/em> March\/April article, SWA\nCEO, Herb Kelleher, reported 71 women pilots were on their flight crews, of\nwhich 26 were Captains. The numbers of women airline pilots has slowly\nincreased with improved career awareness, scholarship programs, and stronger\nmentoring programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A February 24, 2023, USA\nToday<\/em> article reported that Airline Pilots received the sharpest pay\nincrease since 2010 of professional positions. The average salary reported was\n$98,100. The future for women at the airliner controls remain bright. Even\ntoday more contemporary women continue to be record-setting firsts in the\nairline industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several female airline pilots have written books about their\ncareers and challenges. Captain Laura Savino in Jet Boss<\/em> offers important advice for young women considering an\nairline career. Mary Bush Shipko, Hughes Airlines first female pilot, titled\nher memoir, Aviatrix. <\/em>Captain Lynn\nRippelmeyer penned her inspiring airline story Life Takes Wings<\/em>: Becoming\nthe First Female<\/em> Boeing 747 Pilot<\/em>.\nOf course, Captain Tammie Jo Shults tells the harrowing story of safely landing\nSouthwest Airlines Flight 1380 after a catastrophic engine failure in Nerves of Steel. <\/em>With her military\naviation and extensive airline training, she and her crew saved 148 lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These professional airline pilots pushed through adversity\nand challenges to shatter the glass-ceiling of the airline flight decks. Today,\nofficial mentoring projects focus on the support and encouragement many women\nairline pilots did not have available fifty years ago. The highly successful\nGirls in Aviation Day and Mentor Connect of Women in Aviation International are\nimportant tools to introduce aviation to young minds. Other examples are\nSisters of the Skies and the Ninety-nine Professional Pilot Leadership Initiative\n(PPLI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well over one hundred years ago, Harriet Quimby, America\u2019s first licensed female pilot said in 1912, \u201cThe aeroplane should open a fruitful occupation for women. I see no reason they cannot realize handsome incomes by carrying passengers between adjacent towns\u201c\u2026\u201d With that thought in mind, the Emily Warner Field Aviation Museum has proclaimed every March 8 to be Celebrate Emily Warner & Women Airline Pilots Day, which is also International Women\u2019s Day! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – Female airline pilots continue to make aviation history. Here Captain Holly Petitt on Southwest Airlines flight deck with her daughter, First Officer, Keely Petitt. A first mother-daughter flight crew for the airline on August 5, 2022. (Courtesy Southwest Airlines, Schelly Stone) By Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D. January, 1973, was an historic month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/SWA-CPTHollyPetittdaughterKeelyPetittSWAphotobySchellyStoneAug5-2022-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25077,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25068\/revisions\/25077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}