From cockpit to cab drivers, companies want more women to fly them
IndiGo, mints pilots out of fresh college graduates. It was here, during the six months of training that many women graduates sat in an aircraft for the first time.
They were part of a batch of 77 that the airline inducted yesterday to mark Independence Day.
The airline has 800 women pilots, the highest among any commercial airlines in the world but it is still 14% of the 5,038 pilots it employs whereas overall female representation in the company is 44%.
The airline is determined to change that and has set a plan to increase the number to 1,000 by the end of this year, say officials. The airline announced the hiring for the special batch in January.
“These are inspiring stories. Many of them who hail from rural areas will go on to inspire women around them who become encouraged to take up the profession, breaking the perception that the cockpit can be dominated by only male,” Ashim Mittra, senior vice president at IndiGo, said.
From cockpit at 30,000 to cab drivers, women are increasingly challenging domains that were thought of as male bastions and companies are giving a fillip to that.
Electric ride-hailing company BluSmart has 120 women driving for it and is training 250 more, some of whom have already boarded.
The company said that its business model where drivers do not require to own a car of their own unlike Uber and Ola has made it possible for women to take up the job.
“We saw that a lot of women in the ecosystem, who wish to drive for livelihood, were not able to do so because of lack of funds to
