the view
froM here
changing diapers
changing directions
as a young flight instructor, I watched two role models who were
several steps ahead of me on the professional pilot career lad-
Jenny T. BeaTTy
der while their paths diverged dramatically in motherhood. One was
among the first women hired by a cargo airline, and mere weeks after the birth of each of her
three children, she would return to work. She is now a senior captain there. The other became
the first woman pilot hired at a national jet airline, and upon
the birth of her first and only child, found that she just couldn’t
leave him. She left her airline instead, and never looked back.
I myself chose not to have children, but this question of
combining motherhood with a pilot career is being raised more and more frequently by women in aviation. What pilots do at home as parents in order to
make it work at work is the topic of past
and future columns. Here, we look at
how changing diapers may mean changing career directions as pilots.
Although they are not inherently incompatible, a pilot career can certainly
make parenthood more challenging and
vice versa. Let’s start with the basics
of the job: Flying equals travel, which
equals being gone from home. How long
a pilot is away depends on the particular job and aircraft flown. Generally speaking, the smaller
the aircraft, the shorter the trip, and the more likely a mom
can tuck her little one in at night. Large airline and corporate
jets are designed to fly for many hours across continents and
oceans, meaning longer trips.
Whether it’s for one night or several at a stretch, being away
from a child doesn’t work for every pilot parent. A friend jolted me with this cold hard fact when, as a new mother, she left
her dream job flying jumbo jets around the world to become
a simulator instructor—home every night. So I turned to pilot
friends and mentees who are mothers, including several with
twins and some married to pilots, and asked them to share
their insights.
They say the first thing to change is… “Everything!” according to a major airline pilot and mother of three. “As much
as you think your feelings won’t change after you have a baby,
they will,” agrees a cargo airline pilot and new mom. “I was
a hard-core career gal and now I am a complete sap for my
baby. If I can change like that, you will, too.”
Another major airline pilot and mother of three says, “
Unless you have children, you really do not know all the chal-
lenges ahead.” She helpfully outlines the typical strategies of
an airline pilot parent: “Before, I would have taken the bigger
piece of equipment or faster upgrade, even though I would not
have a decent schedule. Now I treasure seniority and will put
off upgrading to captain until I have a
good schedule and vacation slot.”
Another major airline pilot and mother of two chooses to fly domestic trips
instead of taking international overseas
flights, because she figures that she can
get back home quickly from a U.S. city
in the event of a family emergency.
A jet charter pilot tells how her career
plans changed when she got pregnant
and continued to evolve after the birth of
her child. “I knew I could not keep on the
schedule I was on, hauling passengers by
day and organs by night with very little
time off,” she says. “It was an unsustain-
able and exhausting schedule for someone who was pregnant.”
She was grounded only one month into her pregnancy, and
her company wanted her back when her baby was six months
old. That’s not what she had in mind. “After my baby was
born, I didn’t think I’d ever want to return to flying and didn’t
think I could be a good parent if I was frequently away from
home,” she says. And then: “After about a year, I did want to
return to flying.”
Even so, she waited until her child was two and a half before returning to work, flying part-time on contract. “I choose
the days I want to work or not,” she says. “I fly a lot less but
I’m home more, which is what my daughter and family need
right now. And my boss bought me a webcam so I can keep in
touch with my daughter when I’m on the road.”
Another airline pilot has an evolving, somewhat un-planned career path. When her national jet airline asked pilots to take leaves of absence in order to offset furloughs, she
had four good reasons to volunteer: a toddler, infant twins,
and a Navy reservist job.
“I view it as a detour,” she says of the pause in her airline
pilot career. “I want to be an airline captain someday, but
“As much as you
think your feelings
won’t change after
you have a baby,
they will,” agrees a
cargo airline pilot
and new mom.
