Although women have been flying since 1908, most have been limited to general aviation, such as private planes or support roles. While this has changed over the past decade, the numbers still show that women remain significantly underrepresented in aviation worldwide. This gender gap becomes even more noticeable when considering the ongoing workforce shortages. However, there are many advantages to having more women in aviation. Diverse teams tend to be more innovative, better at tackling complex challenges, and more resilient, reflecting the broad diversity of the aviation industry’s customer base.
There has never been a better time for women to enter this field. Airlines are expanding, with larger fleets, more routes, and an increasingly travel-hungry population. However, airlines must prioritize diversity and break down the barriers that have traditionally made the industry seem male-dominated. Virgin Atlantic has led this effort with initiatives like their apprenticeship programs and the Graduate Engineering program.
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Virgin Atlantic believes that anyone can take on the world, so it’s only natural that we strive to recruit diversely in areas which are typically labelled as ‘male-centric’. It’s recognised in the aviation industry that there is a significant lack of women working in engineering and maintenance areas and we are conscious of how we can help to attract more talented women into aircraft engineering.
We have to address the issue at grassroots level. If we, and other airlines, cannot hire women into the entry point of the journey (Apprenticeship and graduate levels) then we have no pipeline for the future. We run an apprenticeship programme each year, employing between 10 – 15 apprentices per year and over the last 3 years 33% of total hires into the apprenticeship campaign have been women. On average only around 5% of those working in the aircraft engineering sector are women, so this marks a significant change and will hopefully have a beneficial impact going forward.
We also run a bi-annual Graduate Engineering programme, designed to give graduate engineers a 2-year rotation throughout a number of key areas within engineering. Since 2022, when we reopened the programme following the Covid pandemic, 63% of our hires have been women into this programme. What is really encouraging is the uptake in women pursuing studies in engineering and then wanting to continue their studies into their chosen careers.
How does Virgin Atlantic achieve these results? The most important thing for Virgin Atlantic is to attract and recruit the absolute best people possible for the jobs we recruit for, with safety, skillset and ability being of paramount importance, regardless of age, gender and ethnicity. We also hire people who share our core values (Be Amazing, Make Friends, Red On The Inside).
By ensuring that the words we use and the routes to market are as open as possible, this enables us to attract women to our brand and also the vacancies. At the very first stages, we create adverts which are as neutral in approach as possible. Rather than focusing on the usual stuff (specific aviation and engineering acronyms and terms), we use gender balancing software to test our adverts for overly masculine tones and too many generic terms, just in case we’re missing anything less obvious. This helps us to create adverts which should appeal to a wider audience. We also include specifics of our company and our values in our adverts. We’d like to think that the majority of candidates are aware of Virgin Atlantic, our brand and how we operate but it doesn’t harm to remind applicants of what we’re about! We chose the best methods of attraction, including industry leading job boards, such as Aviation Job Search and LinkedIn. We’ve even invested heavily into the application process, using software to reduce the time it takes for candidates to apply. We also ask screening questions about capability rather than just experience.
At assessment days and interviews we also create tasks and processes which are engaging and, ultimately, bring the best out of people so they can showcase their abilities in a positive environment. We keep lines of communication open, fun and informative. We recognise that the recruitment process isn’t just about us finding talented individuals, it’s about talented individuals buying into us too – it’s a two-way shop window and we want to impress applicants as much we want them to impress us.
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The offer and onboarding process is also a key component of the process for us. Simply sending offer letters and contracts doesn’t suffice. The material we send and lines of communication need to follow our brand and our values. We feel as lucky to employ our people as they should feel in securing a job with a company like Virgin Atlantic.
Once our successful candidates join us, we want their careers to take off! Many of the talented women we’ve recruited into our Engineering teams have already earned promotions. Our aim is to have a neutral balance of men and women in Management level positions across Virgin Atlantic and we believe we’re well on our way to achieving this.
