WATCH: Ask a young girl about her career plans and chances are aviation won’t be on the list. But as Randene Neill reports, a special event this weekend will try to change that — by giving young women a rare look inside even the “top secret” aspects of an aviation career.
If you’re in a plane, chances are it’s being driven and maintained by a man.
In Canada, less than five per cent of airline pilots are women. That number is two per cent for mechanics and 10 per cent for aerospace engineers.
“There’s not that many women in aviation and aerospace,” says Kirsten Brazier, the organizer of Girls Fly Too. “I think it’s a perception issue when you guys in the seat all the time, you think that’s a job just for them.”
To combat that perception, the organization is holding an event for over 10,000 girls and women this weekend at the Abbotsford International Airport to coincide with International Women’s Day. They’ll have a hands-on opportunity to use some of the tools people in the aviation industry use, and even have a chance to fly if they register ahead of time.
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“We want to say hey, this is a really neat field. there’s IT, there’s maintenance. We need workers, come on in,” says Brazier.
The Cascade Aerospace hangar will be among the many normally private areas opened for the event. COO Ben Boehm says that around 20 per cent of their force is women, but just 10 per cent on the shop floor itself. He hopes events like this will help increase those numbers over time.
“Flying an airplane or putting an aviation display in a plane is no different than a video game or a television or building a house.”
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