SINGAPORE (ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES) – In 2004, then Singapore Airlines flight attendant Vanessa Khaw regularly entered the cockpit to hand the pilots their meals.
Catching the astonishing sight of the sunrise from the flight deck inspired her dreams of becoming a pilot, to see those views every day.
Now a pilot of 15 years with SIA’s budget airline Scoot and Tigerair, which was merged with Scoot, Captain Khaw flies Airbus A320 and A321 narrow-body planes, and was appointed a flight instructor half a year ago, training pilots who join the airline.
The 41-year-old is one of the 61 female pilots at SIA and Scoot who make up 1.9 per cent of SIA Group’s 3,245 pilots, according to the group’s latest Sustainability Report covering April 2023 to March 2024.
While more women here are becoming commercial pilots, their numbers lag behind other countries’.
On the slower growth of the number of female pilots in Singapore, Ms Mabel Kwan, vice-president of the Singapore chapter of Women in Aviation, said that many young women may be unaware of the viability of pursuing a career as a pilot, or do not know about the pathways they need to take to become a pilot.
She added that some may have misconceptions of the dangers associated with flying and mistakenly believe that there is no work-life balance as a pilot.
Collaborative efforts with airlines, training programmes and awareness initiatives that tell the stories of successful female pilots – especially to the younger generation – could turn this around, she said.
Ms Kwan also noted that previously, aspiring pilots had to be accepted by an airline in order to be trained as a pilot. But now, they can learn to fly at training schools that provide local ground school preparation here and facilitate further training in countries such as Australia and the US.
Female pilots were few and far between in 2010, and Capt Khaw recalls that her fellow pilots were surprised to see her in the flight deck in her early days.
But she has observed more female pilots joining Scoot over the years, and they keep in touch over an all-women pilots’ chat group.
She said: “Actually, I’ve stopped identifying myself as a ‘female pilot’. I’m just a pilot, because actually, the expectations are the same. Whether you’re male or whether you’re female, you still have to meet the standards.”
While taking part-time lessons for a private pilot licence in Johor Bahru, she set her mind on becoming a pilot for the rest of her life.
She quit her cabin crew job in 2007 after 3 1⁄2 years, and trained for and obtained a commercial pilot licence at Singapore Flying College in 2009, funding most of the six-figure cost herself and getting loans from her family to cover the remaining sum.
Her family, worried that the male-dominated industry would not be suitable for her, did not support her decision, telling her that being a pilot was “a job for men” and that “no one would want to marry you”, she recalled. But she convinced them otherwise with her determination.
Capt Khaw, who operates turnaround flights, returns home daily to spend time with her daughters who also want to be pilots.
On March 8, to commemorate International Women’s Day, Capt Khaw operated a flight from Singapore to Chiang Mai where all the key personnel – from the duty terminal managers, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officers and security personnel to the pilots and cabin crew – were women.
Another female pilot is Jetstar Asia senior first officer (SFO) Lim Wen Shan, 45, a former military pilot with the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) who transitioned to commercial flying in 2019.
But the younger retirement age of 50 for air force pilots prompted her to make a “natural career transition” to becoming a commercial pilot, as she wanted to continue flying for longer. The retirement age for commercial pilots is 65.
Noting that this career transition is common among air force pilots, SFO Lim said she had to convert her military pilot licence to a commercial one, and completed the flight tests for this in America over one year on her own time while she was still in the air force.
SFO Lim had funded the licence conversion – costing around SGD60,000 – herself, adding that it was “quite expensive” but cheaper than starting from scratch as a cadet.
To add to these challenges, it is uncommon to see a female pilot, making it even more daunting for younger girls who want to pursue a career in aviation, said SFO Lim.
She had to embark on her aviation career with the air force, as back in 2005, there were no pilot openings at budget airlines and SIA did not hire female cadet pilots. SIA started accepting female cadet pilots in 2016.
But SFO Lim noted that she has observed more female pilots in batches after hers in the RSAF, adding that more women may be encouraged to join the aviation sector since information on flying careers is now more accessible due to social media and public outreach campaigns.
