A career in the air

Have you ever thought you would like to be an airline pilot?

Well, it is possible, and although it has been a long time in coming, the aviation industry is encouraging more women to consider a career in the air.

According to figures provided by Gender Gap Grader, of the 650,000 pilots worldwide, 93% are male.

A breakdown of the figures shows that countries with the highest proportion of female pilots are Finland (12%), France (7.6%), Japan (5.6%), USA (5.1%) and Brazil (2.2%).

But the number of women studying to become pilots is on the rise. In Japan, 12.9% of student pilots are female, India (12.5%) USA (12%) Nigeria (8.8%) and Brazil (6.2%).

It is not an easy path, and it is not cheap although there are now scholarships offered in a number of countries for women to train as pilots.

A useful website which could help you find out more about scholarships and training to become a pilot, as well as other career opportunities in the aviation and space industries is Let Women Soar: http://www.letwomensoar.net/