ICAO releases new data on status of global aviation gender equality

Created on 02.05.2023 15:04

Montréal, 27 April 2023 – ICAO’s latest global survey on the status of licensed aviation personnel by gender reveals that the participation of women holding positions as pilots, air traffic controllers, and maintenance technicians has increased on an overall basis from 4.5% globally in 2016, to 4.9% in 2021.

The percentage of women pilots in service increased from 3.6% to 4.0% globally, with the highest increases being observed in the Asia Pacific and Latin America/Caribbean regions. North America scored highest globally with 4.6% women pilots, followed by Africa and Europe with 4.1% and 4.0%, respectively.

The percentage of female aircraft maintenance engineers and technicians rose from 2.7% to 3.0% worldwide, with increases being seen in all regions except the Middle East and Africa. The highest increases in this area were again recorded in the Latin America/Caribbean and Asia Pacific regions, and the Asia Pacific region also had the highest global percentage of licensed female aircraft maintenance engineers and technicians with 4.4%.

The number of women air traffic controllers remained stable globally at around 20.6%, with increases being observed in the Latin America/Caribbean and Middle East regions. The Latin America/Caribbean region featured the highest percentage of women controllers with 31.8%, followed by Europe with 21.4%.

ICAO has published new analytical dashboards on the participation of licensed female aviation personnel in the workforce, and its expected that countries access to and awareness of the new data will lead to better informed targets and policy making to help reduce the still significant aviation gender gap.

Additional data and analytics on the aviation workforce by gender will be released by the UN aviation agency as part of its Global Aviation Gender Summit 2023, taking place 5-7 July 2023 in Madrid, Spain.

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