The Women in Aviation Advisory Board held its final meeting today and voted unanimously to submit its report to the FAA Administrator at the meeting. The FAA will post the report on its website later this week after the board transmits it to the agency.
The FAA will review the report and consider the strategies and recommendations outlined to support its efforts in encouraging women to apply their specialized skills in the aviation field. The recommendations are also expected to be used to help the agency encourage students to consider careers in aviation.
“I want to thank all of you for your service over these long months. We so appreciate your leadership,” said Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg. “I am truly excited to see the incredible ideas this panel is going to come up with.”
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson also recognized the Board’s work at today’s meeting.
“The steps that you have taken to ensure girls and women can enjoy the opportunities that are before us to join all of us in the aerospace industry are invaluable,” said Administrator Dickson. “The number of women in aerospace and aviation is steadily growing, and this is the most exciting time we’ve seen in aerospace in generations. We hope that the work we’re doing together will help to enable women to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.”
Under the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Congress directed the FAA to establish a Women in Aviation Advisory Board to develop and provide independent recommendations and strategies to address the shortage of women and girls in aviation. The Board’s members included thirty women from across industry and academia. Heather Wilson, president of the University of Texas at El Paso, served as the board’s chair.
“Recent decades have seen changes for women – a majority of graduates from college, doctors, and lawyers are now women — but aviation has largely not changed. Congress asked this committee to come together and explore why that is so, and to make recommendations on how to change it,” said Board Chair Dr. Heather Wilson. “Over nearly two years, this group of thirty women leaders from across the country with collectively hundreds of years of experience in the aviation industry have come together to do this work.”