Mon, Dec 22, 2014
Pair Realize Life-Long Dream Of Flying An Airliner Together
Here's a great story from the JetBlue blog. It's pretty well known that women have historically been underrepresented in the field of aviation. Currently only 4% of commercial pilots are women. JetBlue says that while they're proud that their own representative number of female pilots is higher at 5+%, they know there’s a lot of room to increase the representation of women in the cockpit.
Recognizing the importance of getting children involved in aviation early on, the airline recently formed the JetBlue Foundation to help bridge this gap. We also know how much children seeing and learning from representative pilots, so with that in mind, here's the story of just one notable flight pairing seen on the line recently.
"JetBlue pilots Pia and Anna-Maria Kymalainen grew up in an aviation family in Finland. With their father in aeronautical engineering and an older brother following in their father’s footsteps, the aspiration of flight was always close to home. Both sisters began their own careers flying corporate jets before finding their place here at JetBlue – Pia as an A320 Captain and Anna-Maria as First Officer.
"It was a long time goal for both sisters to fly together and that dream recently came true. The women recently operated flight 1480 from FLL to DCA making them the first ever sister-sister flight crew at JetBlue!
"Pia began her aviation career flying freight and corporate jets before joining JetBlue nine years ago. While, Anna-Maria followed her big sister’s lead and also began flying corporate jets seven years ago until finding her home at JetBlue three years ago.
"We love to see women like Pia and Anna-Maria showing young women that there are opportunities for them across all aspects of the aviation industry, and are proud of the work the JetBlue Foundation does in working to increase the number of women in the pilot ranks. In 2013, we created the JetBlue Foundation as a way to encourage and advance careers in aviation, specifically among underserved communities including women. The JetBlue Foundation provides learning opportunities for underserved groups by working hand-in-hand with local and national education institutions that support and foster aviation-related programs. On December 17, the JetBlue Foundation will host its second annual grant presentations for programs focused on encouraging aviation careers among women, people of color, veterans and other underserved groups.
(Image provided by JetBlue)
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