The Ladies of the Air

IATA’s 25by2025 initiative has been launched to push for greater gender equality across the aviation industry and to raise awareness of the need to improve female representation in the aviation industry. With numerous airlines and industry affiliates already committing voluntarily to 25by2025, more than 100 until now, with this initiative, IATA is setting the scene for an aviation industry that acknowledges female talent and generates growth prospects for women in which they can flourish. The aim is for all aviation signatories’ stakeholders to reinforce and enhance female representation in the industry by 25%, or up to a minimum of 25% by 2025.

By joining 25by2025, the co-signers entities will commit to boosting female representation in senior roles in their organization and in areas where women are conventionally under-represented. The aviation stakeholders which will adhere to the 25by2025 initiative will therefore advocate gender balance and establish further career opportunities for women in the aviation industry through the 25by2025 initiative.

25by2025 will be the aviation industry’s platform to share best practices and monitor industry metrics annually to speed up the aviation industry’s drive to produce a gender-balanced workplace. By the year 2025, IATA wishes to increase the number of women in top senior positions within the industry, participating in IATA events, panels, conferences, and those appointed to IATA’s governance roles up to a minimum of 25%, with an eye on gender-based parity in the long run for the industry.

Figure 1 – Source: FlightGlobal

As of the recent statistics, only 6% of airlines have a female CEO, roughly in line with the 5% global average reported by Deloitte in 2022 (Women in the boardroom: a Global perspective). Amongst other categories of C-suite positions, Human Resources are leading, with 40% of such directors at airlines being women. Female Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are also rare, representing 6% of airline directors. At the same time, women fill other executive positions (CFOs, CCOs, or CIOs) up to the peak of 12-13% among airlines (see chart above).

IATA’s 25by2025 initiative is applaudable and brings a lot of hope for women in the aviation industry worldwide. With so many entities already signed in, it has great chances of success.