Airhoss

My wife is a DVM my daughter just got accepted to Vet school. 55% of veterinarians in the US are women. MD’s and DO’s are about 50/50 male to female ratio. If commercial aviation was a desirable job for women there’d be far more female pilots. The educational requirements and hard work needed to get into Vet school or Med school are off the charts. That isn’t holding back women from pursuing those career fields.

The main barrier holding people back from becoming airline pilots is the murky and uncertain path involved in getting to the jobs that pay a descent wage. If you go to Med school or Vet school and you graduate you’ll always have a job, you’ll have the ability to hang a shingle and run your own business. If you don’t like the practice or hospital you are working for you can move along and do better for yourself. You can set up shop anywhere you’d like to live.

Airline careers involve a huge outlay of time and or money to become qualified with ZERO guarantee that you’ll ever get a descent job. Once you do get hired by a major you have zero flexibility to move on if your airline turns into a turd. And your basing choices are set in stone and inflexible. You are away from home for long periods of time making raising a family problematic.

This career has some serious barriers to entry none of which are race or sex based. It’s a very unique lifestyle that doesn’t appeal to many people. And while the money can be good it’s not a career in which you are in control of you destiny or your financial future. You are at the whim of the airline unto which you are betrothed and then become the chattel of. If that once great airline starts to suck then your career starts to suck too no fault of your own. That’s not the case with other licensed professionals such as doctors, lawyers etc. Not having the flexibility to move on is a huge downer with this career. Other professionals can move on without having to start at the bottom of the seniority list.

Just as an example there is never a time and there has never been a time since we’ve been married that my wife doesn’t have two to three equal or better job opportunities in here back pocket. Everywhere we’ve moved chasing my aviation career she’s had a job within a day if she wanted one.