Fewer than six percent pilots at the world's leading airlines are women, while just eight of the largest 100 carriers in terms of passengers have had women bosses, according to a 2021 study by the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska
A May 20, 1937 photo shows US aviator Amelia Earhart on the wing of her Lockheed 10 Electra in Burbank, California. Image: Albert Bresnik / The Paragon Agency / AFP
Farnborough, United Kingdom: Rebecca Lutte regularly takes to the skies behind the controls of her RV-10 kit plane.
Lutte, who is often joined in the air by her husband in the passenger seat, says that on several occasions air traffic controllers asked if her spouse was there in case of problems.
"It's not often. But it just shows that there's still more work to be done," says Lutte with a smile.
While some women have overcome such prejudice and made inroads into the sector in recent years, aeronautical careers remain largely the preserve of men — especially at the top.
According to a 2021 study by Lutte, an associate professor at the Aviation Institute, University of Nebraska at Omaha, fewer than six percent of pilots at the world's leading airlines are women.