Female pilots from the Philippines could help drive Asia’s travel boom

Only about 3 per cent of the world’s pilots are female but that could be set to change as airlines fight for staff amid breakneck growth in Asian aviation

The Philippines is well placed to produce pilots given its widespread use of English, and flight schools want more women to apply

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Boeing estimates Asia will require 266,000 more pilots by 2038. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 7:00pm, 16 Sep 2019Updated: 11:18pm, 16 Sep 2019

The Philippines’ largest flight school is trying to bring more women into the cockpit to help meet a shortage of pilots in Asia.

At Alpha Aviation Group’s campus in Pampanga province north of the capital Manila, one in five of its 550 students each year are women, whereas only about 3 per cent of the world’s pilots are female, founder Bhanu Choudhrie said.

Choudhrie said the group holds recruitment programmes at universities and invites female pilots to give career talks to students to encourage more women to apply. These initiatives aim to dispel the notion in the Philippines that only men can apply to flight school, he added.

Boeing estimates Asia will require 266,000 more pilots by 2038, a third of the global shortage, as travel booms faster in the region than anywhere else. Understaffed airlines in Asia have already been forced to cut flights due to the shortage. Some local carriers are setting up their own academies to produce more pilots.

A woman pilot for Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific. Photo: Dickson Lee

Given widespread usage of English in the Philippines, the country is well placed to cater to regional low-cost carriers, which are now required by regulators to train their pilots in the language, Choudhrie said. The school already trains pilots for local carriers, as well as VietJet Air and AirAsia India.