On Tuesday Aer Lingus welcomed 200 career guidance counsellors and 80 aviation students to its Dublin Airport base today to showcase the variety of career options available to women in the Irish aviation industry. The event was hosted in advance of International Women’s Day, which was celebrated globally on Saturday, 8th March.
Women are under-represented in many areas of the aviation industry worldwide, and the event was designed to provide interactive experiences for members of Ireland’s Institute of Guidance Counsellors with female aviation professionals in a broad range of roles in the sector.
The event, which was supported by daa – the operator of Dublin and Cork airports, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and AirNav Ireland, included a one-hour flight experience on an Aer Lingus A330 aircraft (EI-FNG using the callsign EIN1936), operated by an all-female crew; a behind the scenes tour of Aer Lingus’ maintenance and engineering operation at Hangar 6 at Dublin Airport; a keynote address from Aer Lingus CEO, Lynne Embleton and a series of Q&A talks with women working in a variety of roles in Aer Lingus, daa, IAA and AirNav Ireland. The event also included a careers fair with information stands to promote awareness of career opportunities in engineering, as pilots and cabin crew, in ground operations, air traffic control and support functions such as network planning, fleet management, finance and more.
Commenting at the event, Lynne Embleton, CEO of Aer Lingus said: “There’s huge opportunity for more women to pursue careers in the aviation sector here in Ireland. Our ambition today is to bring to life for Irish career guidance counsellors the breadth of opportunities that are available in aviation. The career guidance counsellors can then in turn help inform the career paths of the next generation of women. There’s no role in aviation that is unavailable to women and it’s important we all play a part in helping to break down the barriers which have led to underrepresentation of females in many areas of the industry. Aviation in Ireland needs a strong pipeline of talent from a range of backgrounds to drive its future success and women will have a critical role to play in this.”
Apprentice engineer with Aer Lingus, Ellen Canny, added: “Working as an aircraft engineer wasn’t something I considered growing up but when I saw Aer Lingus was looking for applications for its apprenticeship programme, I really liked the idea that I could go to college and get on-the-job training at the same time. It doesn’t matter what gender you are on our team, it’s like a family, we all look out for and support each other. It’s a busy and challenging role but one that I really enjoy, and have great opportunities to travel.”
