Pilot in red lipstick smashes stereotypes in aviation

Captain Giselle thanks AirAsia for encouraging women to establish high-flying careers in jealously guarded cockpits.

PETALING JAYA: A female pilot has written to AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes in appreciation of the airline’s system of meritocracy that has helped women’s careers in aviation to take off.

In the email, posted on Fernandes’ Facebook page, the writer, whose name was only given as Captain Giselle, thanked the airline for providing its Filipino pilots and employees, especially the women, with a great working environment.

“(It was the) first time I experienced equal rights for men and women in Philippine aviation,” she wrote of her career experience with AirAsia.

Prior to AirAsia, she said, she had struggled to be recognised as a woman working in a male-dominated industry.

She said she had been in all the local airlines in the country, where she was mocked and harassed because she was a woman.

“I guess at the time male pilots weren’t ready to accept the idea of a pilot wearing red lipstick.

“But everything is settled now. I have proved to these men that all they need is a pilot wearing lipstick to change their views of women in aviation, thanks to Air Asia.” -FMT