How is Jet Luxe celebrating IWD2022?
Our team is global so we will be celebrating together across time-zones with a team quiz and virtual cocktail party! From the US and Latin America to the Middle East, Europe, and Asia – we will come together to recognize IWD2022 with some laughs and togetherness.
What does #BreaktheBias mean at Jet Luxe?
We operate a meritocracy at Jet Luxe in that gender is irrelevant to our talent acquisition process. We have never applied bias towards women in aviation. We are shaking off the outdated idea that certain roles are inherently “female” or “male”. This bias is being eradicated across the industry and at Jet Luxe, we interview and place individuals (not genders) into the right role for them and for the company. If men are better suited as crew; or women in senior management or our concierge team – great. Conversely, if the opposite is true for the individual we support it too. In essence, we believe in being progressive and inclusive whilst avoiding arbitrary goals that don’t work for our team members or the company.
What percentage of the team are female?
Women hold roles at all levels and departments of the company including operations, concierge, crew, sales, and leadership. This figure is currently at around 45% and growing quickly. Interestingly, around 70% of recent applications to Jet Luxe are from women and it would be fascinating to know the nuance of this statistic. Are more women now interested in a career in aviation? Or have more women re-entered the workforce following pandemic related redundancies? Either way, as Chief Commercial Officer, these applications come to me via our human resources team. It’s important to me to have a breadth and depth of skills and culture in the company and as such, our current team has 17 nationalities speaking 18 languages. That alone creates a great diversity and makes the company even more exciting!
I review each application in great depth and personally interview candidates. My fundamental goal is simple: to fit the right individual to the role that best suits them and will bring the most value to all parties.
Is aviation becoming more gender balanced?
Yes, certainly.
Today there are more opportunities in the aviation field than at any time in history, including commercial space flight and unmanned systems. this industry has always been swift to evolve and as such, new jobs will continue to emerge – this is exciting!
From a female perspective, it was hard to imagine a career we haven’t yet seen someone else do first. We’ve seen lots of “firsts” over the past decade and the compound effect is now being realized. Flight schools are reporting an uptick in female students, according to Flight Schools Association of North America President Bob Rockmaker, whose experience echoed that of aviation universities who report a 10% to 15% increase in female pilots.
More women in aviation leads to more women in aviation!
Much of this progress is thanks to efforts designed to advance the industry’s makeup, which has stubbornly resisted change since the first person of color and first woman were hired by airlines in the 1960s and 1970s. Women pilots have slowly risen from 5% to nearly 7% of airline pilots, but they’ve achieved barely a quiver in the needle over the past decade. So, there is more work to be done at a grassroots level.
There are still barriers to girls and women entering certain roles in certain parts of the world, but this is changing for the better. I recall when I was working with Saudi clients and visiting the Kingdom about 10 years ago, securing a meeting with a (male) client was very challenging. Now just a decade or so later, even one of the most conservative countries in the world is becoming more progressive and inclusive. I would add that we should consider shifting motivations and not just the political climate or social pressures to embrace diversity and inclusion. Whilst the reasons for change are highly nuanced, women have brought back service and luxury to business aviation. Companies recognize that having a diverse workforce isn’t something to be enforced upon them but is to be embraced to be competitive and deliver more value.
What is your vision in relation to gender parity at Jet Luxe?
For anyone considering a career in aviation, passion is vital and I have met, worked alongside, and hired an incredible number of passionate women. My vision for Jet Luxe is to continue to recognize the individual, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, family status, or geographical location. We want to be the best for our clients by creating a calm, purposeful, inclusive, and diverse corporate culture. We know that we can only ever be as good as our people and that our team needs diversity to best serve our clients. We are colleagues, friends, and co-workers with great relationships. We respect, support, and work hard for one another and our collective goals. We believe that the pandemic has brought humanity back to business and as a brand that started in the height of COVID, we understand our team members are also human. So, we operate flexible working, we smile and wave when kids and pets pop up on calls, and we understand when babies, kids, and family requires a team member to take a break. Our vision, in summary, is to be human, fair, and supportive to all our team members, regardless of their gender.
How important are men in the process of achieving gender parity in business aviation?
Vital. Change always requires collective effort or it’s simply a power struggle from one “side” to the other. If we all recognize and accept that diversity serves everyone, there should be no argument. There is a clear consensus of this fact at Jet Luxe and everyone is aligned. At a senior leadership level, we all recognize the individual and we shape and advance roles according to their skills. We (the men and women that make up Jet Luxe’s leadership team) then shapes a career trajectory that serves the individual, the business, and our customers.
