Aviation industry urged to hire more women as staff shortages loom

Executives from top aerospace and aviation companies called Thursday for stepped-up efforts to attract more women, saying this could help solve looming shortages of pilots, mechanics and top managers in the traditionally male-dominated sector. The industries are coming under scrutiny because of the low numbers of women employed as senior executives or airline pilots. At the same time, a growing shortage of pilots is putting the sector's recent growth at risk. The head of Qatar Airways, Akbar Al Baker, caused a storm last month when he said that a woman could not do his job, although he later apologised, saying his comments had been intended as a joke and were taken out of context. Charlotte Pedersen, CE of Luxaviation Helicopters, a private aviation operator, said urgent action was needed since the sector faced a potential "huge gap" in management capacity in a decade as current executives retired. Jane Basson, chief of staff to Airbus CEO Tom Enders, said women now accounted for 17.5% of the company's workforce of 140,000 but that was just a tick up from 15% in 2005. "It's not progressing fast enough," she said, adding that her company was now using data analysis tools to understand why it was proving so difficult to recruit and retain women.<br/>