There's a widening of the cracks in the ‘glass ceiling’, but why don’t women run (more) airlines?

Summary

• Commercial airlines are overperforming / underperforming, or on track, when it comes to female leadership.
• IATA: Gender diversity in aviation is improving, but more needs to be done.
• COVID-19 may have reset the playing field for women at the top of airlines...
• ...and changed the way airlines think and act about women in leadership.
• Female leaders generally had a positive impact on business performance during the COVID-19 period.

Commercial airlines are overperforming / underperforming, or on track, when it comes to female leadership

Depending on the data you look at, this means that when compared to wider norms, commercial airlines are overperforming when it comes to female leadership at the CEO/managing director level.

Or possibly underperforming.

Or perhaps just matching.  

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Global Broad Market Index (BMI) – which covers more than 14,000 companies across 48 different countries – found that women accounted for 5.4% of CEO/managing director level position in 2022. This is up from 5% in the 2021 S&P BMI, and 4.9% in the 2020 edition of the index.

However, the 2019 Grant Thorton International Business Report survey of mid-market companies – covering approximately 10,000 companies across 28 economies – found that 15% of businesses had a female CEO.

By 2023, this number had nearly doubled, to 28%.

Fortune Magazine, which compiles the Fortune 500 index of the world’s largest companies, found that there had been a similar increase in recent years. The 2023 edition of the Fortune 500 ranking found that 10.4% of companies were rune by female CEOs – this was up from 7.4% in the 2020 edition, and 6.6% in 2019.

IATA: gender diversity in aviation is improving, but more needs to be done 

IATA believes that, as a whole, the aviation industry's commitment to improving gender balance is "starting to deliver results".

Its own research shows that the percentage of active pilot licences held by women in the US increased from 6.6% in 2013 to 10.3% in 2023. IATA says the share has been "rising steadily", by up to almost 1pp p/a. The overall number of female pilots doubled, from broadly 39,000 to around 83,000 between 2013 and 2023.

The female proportion of the total number of pilots is greatest in the early age cohorts of 14 to 15 years and 16 to 19 years, representing nearly one quarter of the mostly trainee pilots in 2023. 

IATA notes that the female share of the total "steadily declines" thereafter, particularly in "prime working" years. This includes a "significant" 6.1pp decline in the share in the 20 to 24 age cohort, to 16.8%. The share falls to 8.9% for the 40 to 44 years cohort, 3.5% for the 75 to 79 range, and 2.7% for 80 and over.

However, IATA notes gender representation in other aviation professions lags "even further behind".

In 2023 only 3% of all aircraft mechanics certified in the US were female, and only 6% of repair staff and 4% of flight engineers. IATA says a "slightly better" gender balance has already been achieved within the dispatcher category, where 20% were female in 2023.

IATA has stated that although the progress is encouraging, the airline industry remains a "heavily male dominated sector" and added: "More needs to be done to make it an attractive and viable career option for women throughout their working life. Although there is no simple solution to this issue, any such initiatives must span the industry and be undertaken in a conscious and coordinated manner."

COVID-19 may have reset the playing field for women at the top of airlines

COVID-19 was an extremely turbulent time for airlines, and was equally tough on the ranks of airline top management. With global borders closed and passenger traffic falling off a cliff, airlines leaders battled to keep their businesses financially solvent.

Churn in airline upper management was strictly limited during the initial phases of the COVID pandemic. Continuity of leadership and industry experience were highly valued as managers sought to shepherd airlines through the worst of the crisis.

A number of long-serving leaders at major airlines – such as American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce, and Emirates Airline President Sir Tim Clark – even deferred impending retirements to maintain continuity of leadership during COVID-19.

As the crisis moderated and traffic levels and financial performance began to return to normal levels, CEO turnover at airlines also began to pick up. A wave of CEO appointments started during 1H2021, and has continued through into 2024.

Not only did normal industry churn resume – with CEOs moving on to similar executive roles at different airlines – there was also a spike in executives leaving the commercial air travel sector.

Part of this was CEOs executing on their deferred retirements, while another section of airline leadership seems to have left the industry for good in the post-pandemic period.

With this recent wave of new appointments, substantial momentum has been building towards improving the level of gender diversity at the top levels of airline management.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CAPA - Centre for Aviation has identified 18 female airline CEOs who have been appointed to their roles (along with one more to be appointed during Apr-2024).

Female airline CEOs appointed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

CEO	Airline	Title	Appointed
Jayne Hrdlicka*	Virgin Australia	CEO and Managing Director	Nov-20
Lynne Embleton	Aer Lingus	CEO	Apr-21
Annick Guerard	Air Transat	President and CEO	May-21
Linda Markham	Cape Air	President and CEO	Jan-22
Annette Mann	Austrian Airlines	CEO & CFO	Mar-22
Guliz Oztork	Pegasus Airlines	CEO	May-22
Dina Ben-Tal Ganancia	El Al Israel Airlines	CEO	May-22
Marjan Rintel	KLM	President-Director	Jul-22
Stephanie Tully	Jetstar Airways	CEO	Jan-23
Jeanette Mao	HK Express	CEO	Apr-23
Theresa Goncalves	SATA Azores Airlines	SATA Group CEO	Apr-23
Dorothea von Boxberg	Brussels Airlines	CEO	Apr-23
Carolina Martinoli	Vueling	CEO and President	May-23
Christine Ourmieres-Widener	Air Caraïbes	CEO	Jul-23
Vanessa Hudson	Qantas Group	Managing Director and Group CEO	Sep-23
Shelly de Caria	Canadian North	President and CEO	Nov-23
Western Air	Rexy Rolle	President, CEO and General Counsel	Jan-24
Joanna Geraghty	JetBlue Airways	CEO	Feb-24
Mitsuko Tottori	Japan Airlines	Representative Director President	Apr-24

*Outgoing, no retirement date formally announced.

Source: CAPA – Centre for Aviation.

Also contributing to the impetus for change has been IATA’s ‘25by2025‘ campaign.

Launched in late 2019, the voluntary initiative is intended to enhance aviation sector diversity, equity and inclusion.

More than 200 signatories have committed to increasing the number of women in senior positions and underrepresented areas by 25%, or up to a minimum of 25% by 2025.

Participating IATA members also agreed to work to increase the number of female nominations of IATA governance positions to a minimum of 25%.

Has COVID-19 changed the way airlines think and act about women in leadership?

Although this is a positive when it comes to better gender diversity in aviation, the upper echelons of the aviation industry largely remain a 'boys' club'.

Across the 250 largest scheduled commercial airlines, CAPA - Centre for Aviation can identify just 24 female CEOs and managing directors.

Historically, airline leaders have come from male-dominated technical fields, such as engineering or pilots. Female representation in these areas is also still notably lacking.

ICAO’s latest survey on global aviation gender equality shows the share of women in licensed aviation roles has grown very slowly, improving from 4.5% globally in 2016 to 4.9% in 2021.

Women account for just 3% of aircraft maintenance engineers and technicians across the industry, as well as only 4% of pilots and just over 20% of air traffic controller/air traffic management technical roles.

More recently, airline CEOs have tended to have backgrounds in airline strategy and operational roles, or have come from financial or business management fields. These areas have substantially greater female representation, both in the wider corporate world and in the airline industry specifically.

According to Australia’s 2021-2022 Workplace Gender Equality Agency survey, women accounted for 20% of key management personnel and 36% of all managers at Australian airlines. This included 28% of Head of Business roles, 33% of Executive and General Managers' roles, and 35% of Senior Managers' roles.

The broadening of the background of aviation leaders away from technical roles is demonstrated amply in the recent wave of female leadership appointments.

Of the 18 female CEOs who have taken on their roles since the onset of COVID-19, half were internal appointments from either financial/commercial or operational/strategy roles. A further six were from internal roles involving customer experience/infight product, marketing or corporate affairs responsibility.

Leadership appointments of women from outside the sector are rare, a result of the difficult nature of the airline industry combined with its own risk aversion.

Since the COVID-19 crisis, just a single female CEO – Marjan Rintel, who formerly led Nederlandse Spoorwegen – had moved in from another sector to lead an airline.

Outgoing Virgin Australia CEO Jane Hrdlicka technically qualifies, having joined Virgin Australia from Bain Capital in 2020. However, she is an experienced industry veteran, having previously served as CEO of Jetstar Airways and as CEO of Qantas Loyalty & Digital Ventures. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, the ESG imperative, and new leadership styles

The pandemic has produced some mixed conclusions and outcomes when it comes to female leadership across major companies.

Research suggests that female leaders generally had a positive impact on business performance during the COVID-19 period. This was not only in terms of financial metrics, such as profitability, share prices and stockholder returns, but in softer areas, such as employee retention and engagement, stakeholder interaction and collaboration, and improved levels of confidence/trust in brands from consumers.

Research by S&P Global based around earnings calls found that women emphasised leadership and communication styles more focused on flexibility and adaptability during the pandemic.

Female leadership was more likely to communicate around environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and considerations. ESG-related factors have taken on increasing importance for airline industry stakeholders – notably financial institutions and investors – and airlines are coming under increasing pressure to accelerate their sustainability transition.

However, research during the pandemic also found higher rates of turnover for female business leaders than for their male counterparts, along with substantially higher rates of burnout or exhaustion when compared to equivalent male managers.

Female business leaders also reported generally higher levels of pessimism about future outlooks for their companies, and more difficulty than male leaders when negotiating with financial institutions and labour groups.

Where to now?

With major global airlines, including Qantas, Air France, Pegasus Airlines, KLM, El Al Israel Airlines and (soon) Japan Airlines, now being helmed by female CEOs, it seems that something of a sea change is under way.

Momentum towards gender diversity at the upper reaches of the commercial airline sector continues to build, albeit helped in recent times by the unique circumstances and turbulence resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The diversification of aviation is a net good for the industry. Female leadership brings with it fresh perspectives and new opportunities. Women have historically been underrepresented in aviation, and the industry needs all the help it can get to resolve critical and ongoing workforce shortages.  

Aviation remains a male-dominated industry, with women still underrepresented in technical and leadership roles. While there has been a notable widening of the cracks in the ‘glass ceiling’ at the upper echelons of airline management in the past two to three years, there’s still much ground to be covered.

The examples of Qantas Group and Lufthansa Group – where there are now multiple female CEOs across different airlines and business units – show that the culture can be changed even at the highest corporate levels.

As gender diversity in the sector continues to broaden, and new ground continues to be broken, in terms of female representation in leadership, this will only pave the way for more women to rise to the top.