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More Korean women overcoming sexism to become pilots

Posted March. 02, 2013 01:36,   

한국어

Among 4,527 pilots with air carriers in Korea, just 19, or 0.4 percent, are women, including pilots in training. A pilot earns a high income and travels across the world, and thus the occupation is highly sought after, but few women have entered this field.

A female pilot who chose to be identified solely by her surname Choi said, “The biggest obstacle to overcome was prejudice among the people around me, who would ask how a woman could become a pilot. But after deciding to become a pilot, I never thought I wouldn`t be able to achieve my goal."

Choi grew up in a village near Gangneng Airport in Gangneung, Gangwon Province. As a young girl, she spotted a plane flying over her whenever she heard a roaring sound. She said she felt a vague emotion of what would it be like to fly an aircraft.

After graduating from high school, she heard the story of Jeong Jun-yeong and Park Ji-yeon, a couple who flew fighter jets and hailed from the Korea Air Force Academy. Learning that a woman can also become a pilot, she dreamed of flying the skies.

Her father tried to dissuade her from pursuing her goal because she was expected to struggle and be bashed among men. She eventually won her father over and entered the aviation and pilot department of Hanseo University in 2005. She was the lone woman among the department`s 40 students.

Training to be a pilot was an expensive venture. College tuition alone amounted to 10 million won (9,200 U.S. dollars) per semester, including costs for practical lessons.

Choi’s family was not well off, and her younger brother also entered college. She took out student loans throughout her four years in college and worked part-time at the school cafeteria.

She flew 180 hours in college, failing to meet the minimum of between 250 and 1,000 hours as required by different air carriers. For two years after graduation, she worked as assistant trainer at the pilot training center of Hanseo, and accumulated more than 1,100 hours of combined flight time. Choi never studied abroad but worked hard to learn English. She eventually acquired the required level of English verbal proficiency for working on international flights.

When selecting an airliner to join, she carefully examined which carriers give special consideration to female pilots. She liked the liberal corporate culture at Jin Air, where both pilots and flight attendants wear jeans as uniforms, and joined the budget carrier as its first female pilot.

A company source said, “We will proactively support Ms. Choi so that she becomes a great pilot, as she applied to join the company with trust in us.”

Most female pilots in Korea are between their late 20s and mid 30s. They became pilots over the past several years. Most male pilots are retired Air Force servicemen in their mid to late 40s on average, older than female pilots.

Female pilots in Korea say childbirth and child rearing make them most reluctant when considering whether to pursue their occupation. This is because pilots often fly long hours and work irregular shifts. But the perception that pilot is a job exclusively for men is gradually changing and given the short supply of pilots in the domestic aviation industry, analysts say the number of female pilots will grow. According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the number of female pilots in the U.S. in late 2010 was 5,623, or 5.4 percent of all pilots in that country.

Park Gye-hong, deputy director of the aviation training center at the Korea Aerospace University, said, “As we train students, women often display outstanding capacity based on their sense of delicateness and calm composure unique to women.”



gene@donga.com