Aer Lingus Pilot Lisa Cusack

DOCARCH · 08-02-2017 07:08AM

She (Lisa) will be on the Ryan Tubridy show this morning on RTE Radio 1.

rorymcgrory · 08-02-2017 08:18AM

Why is this inspirational? Fair play to her but in this day and age it's not such a biggie. Woman becomes a pilot. Take Scandinavian Airlines for example who have over 20% of female pilots.

1123heavy · 08-02-2017 08:42AM

DOCARCH wrote: »

She (Lisa) will be on the Ryan Tubridy show this morning on RTE Radio 1.

This is quite silly now, fair play to her but interviewing on RTE1? Women get the cadet ship with Aer Lingus and BA every year, some with a ppl funded through various means, it is definitely an achievment but most certainly not worth the disproportionate attention

plodder · 08-02-2017 10:01AM

rorymcgrory wrote: »

Why is this inspirational? Fair play to her but in this day and age it's not such a biggie. Woman becomes a pilot. Take Scandinavian Airlines for example who have over 20% of female pilots.

Think you're missing the whole point. The fact she is a woman has almost nothing to do with the story.

rorymcgrory · 08-02-2017 10:27AM

plodder wrote: »

Think you're missing the whole point. The fact she is a woman has almost nothing to do with the story.

So if this was a young guy it would get the same reaction? I doubt it. Pretty sure Mr Tubridy wouldn't give a toss about it.

plodder · 08-02-2017 10:47AM

rorymcgrory wrote: »

So if this was a young guy it would get the same reaction? I doubt it. Pretty sure Mr Tubridy wouldn't give a toss about it.

You asked why was it inspirational, insinuating some link to her being a woman. I’m saying her achievement is remarkable irrespective of her gender. It's hardly her fault if her story is interesting.

basill · 08-02-2017 11:28AM

Its PR. Social Media and all that buzz. AL love that stuff and good news stories. The push will be coming from inside.

roundymac · 08-02-2017 11:36AM

You can be sure EI as a large advertiser with RTE will have pushed this story and fair play to whoever though it through.

rustynutz · 08-02-2017 12:13PM

I think its inspirational, she had a dream from a very young age and despite setbacks along the way (that would have made others quit) she didn't give up and achieved her goal. I think her gender is irrelevant. A nice news story, I would prefer to read something like this over the usual doom and gloom out there.

PukkaStukka · 08-02-2017 05:10PM

She's done something that many of us blokes have dreamed of but never quite managed. I'm as jealous as hell but I'm honest enough to admit it.

deaddonkey15 · 09-02-2017 09:45AM

plodder wrote: »

Think you're missing the whole point. The fact she is a woman has almost nothing to do with the story.

She's been Aer Lingus' poster girl for years and they've been making a bit of noise lately about the percentage of female pilots they employ as well as putting them in the public eye every chance they get. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I think the fact that she's a woman is the sole reason the story is there.

Minister · 09-02-2017 06:39PM

Lads,
A person has a dream. They go for it. Along the way certain things occur i.e. aircraft issue, big money raised and little home business started and a couple of knocks along the way from which the person gets back up. A feel good; good news story in a mad world! Employer and media like it. So what!!!!

But to some fifteen or sixteen year old young lad or girl the article might have said "if l put my mind to something, I can do it!!

Can't people just wish her well and see the hope it might give to another!!

We should be more concerned of issues such as our countrys' downward movement on the Transparency International Index for the second year on the trot. See http://transparency.ie/news_events/corruption-perceptions-index-2016

Gamebred · 09-02-2017 08:34PM

Wonder how much Aer Lingus have put into this pr campaign.

1123heavy · 10-02-2017 03:56PM

I don't know, I can understand what the noise was for when Grainne Cronin became a pilot, being somewhat a pioneer ... it's the norm now though

plodder · 10-02-2017 04:30PM

Gamebred wrote: »

Wonder how much Aer Lingus have put into this pr campaign.

"pr campaign". It's an article in a newspaper, written, I presume by the woman herself.

So, I'd say it cost Aer Lingus maybe the price of a phone call to Independent Newspapers.

Maybe she even got paid for it ....

rorymcgrory · 10-02-2017 06:45PM

I wonder will Tubs be interested in getting this girl on his show.

http://www.thelocal.se/jobs/article/sweden-gets-its-first-female-fighter-pilot-in-over-25-years

Locker10a · 10-02-2017 07:35PM

1123heavy wrote: »

I don't know, I can understand what the noise was for when Grainne Cronin became a pilot, being somewhat a pioneer ... it's the norm now though

I wouldn't say it's the norm...female pilots are very rare, they exist of course but are rare, over at Easyjet there is a huge push to attract more female pilots for example, they are really trying to lessen the gender imbalance for this career, a quick google of the easyjet Amy Johnson scheme will show you info on their plan

Stovepipe · 12-02-2017 08:44PM

I disagree; there is no shortage of female pilots globally, (except in those countries that for certain religious reasons don't allow women to compete for flying jobs) and EI has about 50 now and there's probably the same in FR and Cityjet. ATC also has no shortage of female staff, and equally so in cabin crew, load planning and office based engineering planning and in every other kind of airline job...except engineering on the ramp and in the hangar. Now that's where there is a real shortage; In EI, we have none on the ramp and none in the hangar. Not a one, not even as apprentices. The other Irish airlines have a handful between them. Why? I suspect that it is not being touted as a job to young girls in TY and those coming up to college age.

Locker10a · 12-02-2017 11:24PM

Stovepipe wrote: »

I disagree; there is no shortage of female pilots globally, (except in those countries that for certain religious reasons don't allow women to compete for flying jobs) and EI has about 50 now and there's probably the same in FR and Cityjet. ATC also has no shortage of female staff, and equally so in cabin crew, load planning and office based engineering planning and in every other kind of airline job...except engineering on the ramp and in the hangar. Now that's where there is a real shortage; In EI, we have none on the ramp and none in the hangar. Not a one, not even as apprentices. The other Irish airlines have a handful between them. Why? I suspect that it is not being touted as a job to young girls in TY and those coming up to college age.

No one is arguing that there is any kind of shortage of female pilots... they are arguing that the percentage of women working as career pilots is very very low, and that's true, compared to other careers.
I'm sure there are other examples like engineering as you mentioned. Right now some airlines (easyjet being one) are really pushing their commitment to increase their percentage of female pilots in their workforce, this also doubles as free and positive PR. I think some posters here are pointing out that this is also the case for EI.

L1011 · 13-02-2017 12:49AM

Locker10a wrote: »

I'm sure there are other examples like engineering as you mentioned..

With a few, very notable, exceptions - every stereotypically male career has very few women in it. Teaching, primary care doctors and solicitors are the few careers that were "male" maybe 40 years ago and most recruits are female now.

The education system needs to encourage future recruits for everything that gender doesn't matter - as well as there not being many girls going to be a pilot now there's very few boys going to be a teacher; and more female medical students go for GP training when more male go for specialisation.

dudara · 14-02-2017 08:34AM

Lisa is first officer on my flight this morning. Expectations are high

Jan_de_Bakker · 16-02-2017 12:08PM

Fantastic !
Thanks for the post

Jan_de_Bakker · 16-02-2017 12:08PM

dudara wrote: »

Lisa is first officer on my flight this morning. Expectations are high

How did it go ?

H3llR4iser · 16-02-2017 05:49PM

Stovepipe wrote: »

...except engineering on the ramp and in the hangar. Now that's where there is a real shortage;

That's the norm with engineering and not just in aviation, I'm a software engineer and in the office, out of 30 engineers, 2 of them are women. Back during my University course in the very early 2000s, out of about 100 students in it there were 4 or 5 girls; Two of them graduated with top honours, the others dropped after the first few months.

I was involved with CoderDojo and even there the attendance was 90% boys; We're talking kids as young as 6 years old, and that means it's mostly the girls parent's deciding that learning technical skills is "for boys". As the workforce converges more and more towards technically specialized positions, I foresee a "gender unemployment" issue brewing in the distance unless attitudes change.

dudara · 16-02-2017 11:35PM

Jan_de_Bakker wrote: »

How did it go ?

Very smooth flight. She's quite petite, I hadn't expected that for some reason. And I'm saying that as a 155cm person myself.

plodder · 17-02-2017 09:07AM

dudara wrote: »

Very smooth flight. She's quite petite, I hadn't expected that for some reason. And I'm saying that as a 155cm person myself.

Don't they say that about famous people/celebs in general? They always look smaller in real life

Dardania · 17-02-2017 10:05AM

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Stovepipe wrote: »

...except engineering on the ramp and in the hangar. Now that's where there is a real shortage;

That's the norm with engineering and not just in aviation, I'm a software engineer and in the office, out of 30 engineers, 2 of them are women. Back during my University course in the very early 2000s, out of about 100 students in it there were 4 or 5 girls; Two of them graduated with top honours, the others dropped after the first few months.

I was involved with CoderDojo and even there the attendance was 90% boys; We're talking kids as young as 6 years old, and that means it's mostly the girls parent's deciding that learning technical skills is "for boys". As the workforce converges more and more towards technically specialized positions, I foresee a "gender unemployment" issue brewing in the distance unless attitudes change.

It's a crying shame...I'm a (male) engineer myself, and from looking back on my career thus far, I have found the average female engineers to be generally better at what they were doing on any project as the average male engineer. Maybe they had to work harder to prove themselves? If I had a more equal number of female engineers, with those stats - maybe a few of my projects would have gone smoother!
I know when my daughter gets older, I will be exposing her to news stories such as this EI pilot's one, or bringing her to work with me (certain engineering projects in Ireland have better than the norm gender balances), so that she understands that there are positive role models to bear in mind when she's thinking about what to do after secondary school. There are a lot of subtle hints to women that they should go into "women's" jobs...

Aer Lingus Pilot Lisa Cusack

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