Manchester Airport marks International Women’s Day with women in aviation panel

Five women in various roles across the aviation industry spoke to an audience of hundreds of young people about careers in the sector as part of a one-off special episode of Manchester Airport’s official podcast.

The one-off episode of ‘Manchester: Your Airport, MAN’ was recorded in front of a live audience at the airport’s inaugural Aviation Careers Festival last week, with hundreds of secondary school and college age pupils in attendance – and has been released in audio and video format to mark International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March.

Compered by former BBC Radio 6 Music, Key 103 and Rock FM host Hywel Evans, the episode takes on a Q&A format – with pupils in the audience putting their questions to the panel. The women offering their career tips and insights were:

• Melanie Lawley, Manchester Airport’s Head of Airfield Operations
• Kate Wild – Air Traffic Controller
• Lauren Wigglesworth – Pilot
• Laura Moskal-Beresford – Cabin Crew
• Abi Owen-Hodgson – Apprentice Aircraft Engineer

A huge range of questions was put to the panel, from how to get into an aviation career, to how an Air Traffic Controller would handle an unidentified aircraft, and which airports are the flight crews’ favourites to fly into.

There was also plenty of discussion on efforts being made to address gender imbalances in an industry that has historically had ingrained gender stereotypes – only around five per cent of commercial pilots are women, for example – but all of the panellists affirmed that they had noticed positive changes.

Pilot, Lauren Wrigglesworth said:

“I think if you said ‘airline captain’, you’re probably not visualising me, so I think I definitely do surprise people. But I’ve been flying for 20 years, I’ve flown six different aeroplane types, I have the experience, and I have the knowledge. One of the reasons it’s very important for me to be here today is, you can’t be what you can’t see, and today I hope we’re proving that you can be what you want to be.”

Melanie Lawley added:

“To be fair, there are women [employed] in most aspects of an airport – but Airfield Operations does tend to be very male-dominated, and I have been, and still can be the only female in a room at times. But I wouldn’t let that put anyone off – no-one’s looking at me [saying], ‘oh, she’s a woman’. If you’ve got the knowledge and the skills and the experience to be able to contribute to the discussions that are going on, that is the most important thing – not what you look like.”

And apprentice engineer Abi said:

“You don’t see too many girls but there are definitely more coming into the industry, which is nice to see – it shouldn’t be one gender, it should be a bit of a mix. I do have people ask me sometimes, ‘what made you get into this?’, but I don’t get treated any differently.”