

Why aren't more women airline pilots? - bconway
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/03/18/female.airline.pilots/index.html

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ckuehne
I don't think money is the problem here. In Germany, Lufthansa, the largest
airline and has the following model: the pilot program takes 24 months.
Students have to pay 60k Euro which the get pre-financed by Lufthansa interest
free. The have to pay it back once they get a job at Lufthansa (entry salary
60k/year). If they don't get a Lufthansa job within 5 years they don't have to
pay it back. So basically, there is very little financial risk and the job is
very well paid. They even give a job guarantee after pregnancy.

Still the female pilot ratio is less than 5 percent.

~~~
jedsmith
Do pilots start that program with absolutely no experience, or do they have to
have a license (private? ATP?) already? That's a hell of a deal, given the
civilian path to flying for an airline in the States and the debt that rides
along.

~~~
ckuehne
No prior experience required. Just German Abitur [1].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur>

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ojbyrne
Perhaps because the pay is shitty?

"she began her airline career with a regional carrier, where the starting
salary can be less than $20,000 a year for a first officer"

I guess the real question, given that the article mentions up to $100k costs
for training (unless you go for the government subsidized route - i.e. the
military), is why is anyone an airline pilot?

~~~
cletus
Being a pilot is much like being a doctor (in the US at least). In the US,
people go to college for 4 years (costing anywhere from a little to a lot) and
then 4 years of medical school, costing even more. Before they've worked a day
(not counting placement as medical students), a typical doctor-to-be may
easily have over $100k in student loans or paid tuition.

At that point they become interns/residents and earn less than waiters for
several years. After that is when they make their money back. Depending on
which specialty (if any) they may make it back in spades. Top-notch surgeons
can clear $500k-$1m+ a year.

Pilots in their early years are interns/residents. They've shelled out for
their tuition, just like medical school, and now they're getting paid not in
cash but in logged hours. After a few years those hours will translate to
higher salaries.

More: [http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-want-
to...](http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-want-to-know-how-
much-your-captain-earns/)

~~~
vaksel
100K in student loans for a doctor?

Not even close...that's what just a normal bachelor grad tends to have(well
those that go to private schools).

For a doctor, those numbers are much more closer to 250-300K.

And that's not even the worst part...once they graduate and get their medical
degree...they have to do their residency, which means they spend a few more
years working for peanuts while their debt continues growing.

~~~
Retric
Your numbers are way off base. "Among graduating 4-year undergraduate students
who applied for federal student aid, 86.3% borrowed to pay for their education
and the average cumulative debt was _$24,651._ (For just federal student loan
debt, excluding PLUS Loans, the figures are 61.6% and $17,878."

Now, a small number of people get into huge amounts of debt but it's uncommon
because normally it's irrational behavior. Going to a big name school is much
like buying a Prada handbag there are upsides and a lot of social pressure to
do so, but for most people it's simply a bad idea.

PS: The best case for Harvard is vary good, but so is buying a lottery ticket.
Once you consider a wider range of outcomes and risk vs reward things shift.
EX: Consider what happens if you don't like being a Doctor?

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portman
Anecdote: the first time I ever had a captain was about 10 years ago on a Thai
Air flight. (Bangkok to Chiang Mai.)

Since then, I've had a female captain on precisely 3 other flights (Laos Air,
Thai Air, and United Express). This is out of probably 600-700 flights.

(And to those who are wondering, "are you sure you didn't miss any", I suspect
you've never had a female captain. It turns out it's almost impossible to NOT
notice a female captain's voice on the PA, because it's so unusual.)

~~~
validuser
All my female captains had baritone voices.

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notahacker
Take an industry which has a geeky enthusiast appeal very similar to that of
IT. Then add in huge barriers to entry which make it very difficult for those
not wholly committed to a long term career as a pilot to be considered.

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Duff
I'd argue three reasons.

First, airlines usually recruit military pilots, since the government was kind
enough to invest $500k or more to train them as pilots.

Second, the era of airline pilots being a glamorous job is over. When major
airlines add pilots, they usually come from a layoff pool.

Third, mothers are usually primary caregivers for their children. The schedule
for a pilot is awful relative to the level of education required. It only
really works if your spouse is in a job with very flexible hours.

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tibbon
Haven't read TFA and I'm not going to because the answer seems obvious. I'd
say this is mainly because a huge portion of (at least older) pilots were in
the air force/navy and historically (unsure about now) women weren't flying in
the air force/navy. The military is still pretty much a "men's world" and I
think its probably the last place in society that we'll see an equal number of
men and women on each task. Is it right? No, but that's what it is.

~~~
sh4na
It's mind-boggling what some people consider worthy of an upvote around
here... didn't read the article, guesses what it says, then pats self in the
back for such a good job at commenting. Subsequent upvotes tell other people
that this comment is somehow meaningful for the discussion. Cute!

Edit: and of course I'm downvoted. Thanks!

Edit2: I'm no longer downvoted. Even though this might be relevant to a
discussion of the voting system, I don't want to intrude on the discussion of
the article itself, so no need to vote anymore on this. Thanks for the
upvotes, everyone. Nothing to see here, move along... :)

~~~
jedsmith
I downvoted you because as true as it might be, it's not constructive to call
the OP out, and you're adding some of the very noise that you're complaining
about.

~~~
sh4na
Nod, I understand. At the risk of adding just a little more noise, a quick
note: I initially ignored the comment, but then while reading other comments I
started seeing the upvotes piling up, and frankly, it bothered me. I can't
downvote, I can only comment, so that's what I did.

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pbhjpbhj
Why aren't more men florists?

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coreyo
Dumb question. It is a short sighted question. This same question exists in
most fields. Why aren't there more women fill_in_the_blank?

Why aren't there more women engineers? Why aren't there more women
politicians? Why aren't there more women programmers? Why aren't there more
women executives?

Women's interests and their own culture, from childhood to college, drive them
to the occupations they want.

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bostonpete
I always assumed it was because women are lousy drivers and the stakes are
much higher when you get behind the wheel of a plane... _duck_

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think your comment has some (limited) merit - men are supposed to have
better spatial reasoning which is pretty important when you're considering
attitude and approach, etc., I imagine.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
From Psychological Science January 1, 1993 vol. 4 no. 1 35-40:

"Recent research suggests that dynamic spatial reasoning tasks show more
robust gender differences than static spatial reasoning tasks."

From the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education,
<http://www.jstor.org/pss/749620>, 2001:

"By 8th grade, girls' relatively poorer spatial-mechanical skills contribute
to lower scores in types of mathematics at which boys typically excel".

Come on HN how does this not add to the discussion. Here's some food for
thought:

* <http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/10/850.short> \- action games altering spatial reasoning differences across the genders * <http://rer.sagepub.com/content/65/1/22.short> \- spatial reasoning appears to be a function of mathematical ability and not gender _per se_ * [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-3VV41KB-H&_user=10&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F1996&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1684437014&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6469ba0ec21c0495d08c16f8672a9792&searchtype=a) \- showing that it appears to be relatively easy to improve spatial reasoning, particularly for females, if there's a desire to do it

But hey stick your head back in the sand and repeat after me "everyone is
equal; gender is an illusion".

