AER Lingus will mark International Women’s Day on Thursday by offering priority boarding to all women departing on UK and European flights from a number of airports including Belfast City.
Some 110 flights on March 8 will see female travellers along with any junior travel companions board their flight ahead of all other guests as a gesture by the airline to join in this global celebration recognising the achievements of women and promoting greater gender equality.
More than 2,000 of Aer Lingus 4,200 employees are female, carrying out roles across all areas of the airline including pilots, cabin crew, engineers, flight dispatchers, check-in and boarding teams, planners, IT, marketing, communications, finance, and logistics specialists to name a few.
Aer Lingus is focused on supporting female talent across the airline and has created a Aer Lingus Women's Network called LIFT (Let’s Inspire Female Talent), the purpose of which is to recognise, enable and support the career progression of women in Aer Lingus through ongoing workshops, panels discussions, networking and mentoring programmes.
To highlight the important roles fulfilled by female members, Aer Lingus ran an all-female managed and crewed transatlantic flight from Dublin to New York (it was the first airline in Europe to have female pilots when Grainne Cronin flew her first flight as a qualified Aer Lingus pilot in 1978).
Today 10 per cent of Aer Lingus pilots are female, which is more than double the international airline industry average.
