Big Push to Grow the Number of Women in Aviation Kicks Off

The 29th annual Women in Aviation International Conference kicks off today at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nevada, inspiring women to seek careers in aviation.

Each year, the conference provides women and men a place to meet with potential employers and to learn more about aviation careers. Inspirational speakers, exhibits, workshops, on-site interviews and more are offered. A long list of scholarships, totaling tens of thousands of dollars, will be handed out during the next few days to deserving women who need a boost in their quest to advance their careers.

The event comes on the heels of the Institute of Women of Aviation Worldwide (iWOAW) Week, which broke records this year with 61,000 women participating, an increase of 15 percent over last year. The organization encourages aviation professionals around the world to organize events during this week to inspire women to enter aviation-related jobs. From March 5 through 11, 12,408 women took their first flights as part of iWOAW’s program, Fly it Forward, which arranged 179 organizers in 33 countries to take women and girls flying.

While progress is being made, there is still a long way to go to normalize the percentage of women pilots. Currently, only 6.33 percent of the commercial pilot population comprises women, a number that has increased from 4.7 percent about a decade ago.