Okay, I can feel the dogpile beginning and I've got to go fly, so let me clarify a few things and why I chose to respond.
First, I agree that it's not right to name names in a public forum unless perhaps it's to praise them. From the sound of it, this girl is a good person, and I believe that good things should happen to good people. In her case, it sounds like the Fairy Godmother of Good Job-Hunting Fortune pranged her on the head, and she would have been unfit to fly on psychological grounds if she had turned it down. You can't fault her for that, and I most certainly don't.
Second, I've been flying with girl/women pilots since my high school flying club days and university, had many female students, and they've been my peers in both corporate and airline flying. A pilot is a pilot in my book, some good some not so good, but I've flown with and observed many who could fly circles around most men. As far as male pilots who think that women don't have what it takes, I've got no time for 'em, and only hope that some night they're visited by the ghost of Hanna Reich in an ME-163 Komet.
Third, women are far more interesting than men. I've never shared a cockpit with one who has bored me for hours droning on about Union issues, how management sucks, or their mutual fund.
To address a few comments directed at my post:
AA717driver;
I agree with all 4 of your points. As to why I responded to your first one the way I did see my response to bafanguy below.
Bafanguy and English;
I never slammed this girl for her SIC time at Eagle, my point was to highlight the notion that it made any difference, and how ludicrous it is to automatically assume her hours gained at Eagle were an advantage. Usually it's a huge liability. You see, it's not a girl/boy thing, it's an airline/corporate thing. Pilots with airline backgrounds are viewed with suspicion by most large flight departments as a matter of economics and hiring/retention hassles more than anything else. They figure at best, no matter what someone who's young with low time (male OR female) says during an interview, there's a 50-50 chance they will jump ship to an airline given the chance.
These flight departments don't see themselves as "stepping stones" and that's why they pay new-hires 80K a year, especially when costs for Gulfstream initial and recurrent training are running about $30,000, smaller equipment not much less. History has also shown that too-high a percentage of ex or wannabe airline types don't pan out in the corporate world for various reasons, and there's plenty of examples, that's not my opinon. It's hard to justify hiring one with the costs involved given that risk and the fact there are umpteen thousand qualified pilots with no such blemish. Some managers are even given marching orders to only hire only those already type-rated in their aircraft. To their credit, a lot of managers resist this knowing that the PERSON will make the difference between a good employee and a bad one. Fitting the individual to the culture of a particular company IS more important than type ratings or hours, because even the largest of 91 flight department is really a small family.
Any department manager who's hiring practices result in a costly revolving door will be noticed, and they'll probably have to answer for it. Now factor in the fact that a potential new-hire is not only young, with low time...but also a FULOUGHEE? Well the chances of that person staying on just plummeted dramatically. I can't overemphasis how unusual that is.
English, the reason why people get corporate jobs via networking, especially at Fortune 50 companies, is for the above reasons. It's the whole reason why recommendations from a good employee carry weight. That person is vouching not only for their piloting ability, but because this issue of "taking the type rating and running" (someon here even recommended it) is so prevalent, and that person's personality. From the looks of the experience of person who got hired in your example, he never showed signs of having airline goals. I'm sure they asked him about it during his interviews. I'd think the very same thing about a female with that same experience and attitude.
So anyone who's been in this business for awhile must ask themselves...."how can a young, low-time, airline FURLOUGHEE get hired at a place like that given the competition and experience out on the street?". Well, she certainly must have said the right things during the interview. Everyone has said she's nice, and that goes a long, long way. Perhaps she swore up and down she'd not go back to Eagle when they call. Personally, I'd have any furloughee show me a letter resigning their seniority number before I'd consider them, and maybe she did so.
Now, if she admits that she'll run back to Eagle when they call, then there's another agenda at work...not hers, the company's..and she's not to be faulted for it. If the road of least resistance is paved for her and she's shown the way, well that's just her good luck and I hope she's up to the task after she gets on the road and keeps her job. Flying is a great equalizer, and you can't fake your way through it.
So to discuss the "gender factor" in hiring..factual examples. AA717driver, one of my best friends got hired at American Airlines with no college degree when competitive mins dictated it. She got an offer from United too about the same time. She had the equivalent of 1 years' worth of college credit only, but spent her college-age years flying instead. A wonderful girl and great pilot but not one guy during that time I ever heard of got hired without that degree. She's still there and doing fine, and I was happy for her and still am. Fair to others? Maybe not but life not fair and there it is.
I knew a Chief Pilot (retired now) for a large Midwest company running multiple Gulfstreams who told me directly that he got marching orders from the Board..."we don't want to see only white, all-male crews anymore", so he then began scouring the state, then the country, for applicants. Actively recruiting. Believe me this place had people trying to get into there for years with experience up the ying yang. A few lunar landings was considered competitive. (Epilogue; both these lying low-timers hired jumped ship to the airlines soon afterwards..one of them, a then-girlfriend of a friend of mine, didn't even know what a Gulfstream was when she got the offer....Im not kidding).
This is NOT TO SAY the girl in the Coke example is like this..not at all I sincerely hope and will assume she got hired on her merits until proven wrong. I'm just giving real examples of how ludicrous and expensive political correctness can be, and how in the end it does a real disservice to the women in aviation and their reputions.
Hopefully she's what you say...a great girl....then I hope for her success and a long career at Coke. If she retained her airline seniority number and jumps ship then a stupid company got what it deserved, in addition to her not being such a great girl after all but just another airline-type they should have known better not to hire.
Got to go fly...I hope that clears things up.
