I don't believe that women earn 75% less than men at a certain airline.

[Gromance02]

I just don't. Unless they are talking about completely different roles. Eg, pilots (generally men) compared to air stewards (generally women). I'm not defending the airline but I don't think they deserve this utterly misleading headline.

Obviously if a female pilot with exactly the same length of career with the same number of sabbatical/maternity/paternity leave as a man is on less than her male counterpart, that is wrong.

You're a very strange lady.

Bingo, do you think employers always go for the best and cheapest candidate, if so why are women underrepresented in roles. What is your explanation for the sex pay gap if not sexism. According to you it would be stupid to get rid of negotiation on pay. Have you heard of the job advert experiment? What is your understanding of structural inequality?

Sorry if this has been done already but didn't have time for the full thread. I think one of the reasons Ba has a better gender pay gap than Ryanair is actively spending money on encouraging women into male dominated roles like pilots and engineers. I doubt a low cost carrier will ever spend extra when it doesn't need too as its all about cost minimisation.

I also think that BA benefit from being a popular name so assuming the pool of female pilots or engineers is smaller, BA get first pick. I think Ba also has quite a high proportion of male cabin crew.

The simply solution to the pay issue is to make the pay for the role fixed and known at the outset. Then the men are paid the same as the women

Do you think that experience should count when applying for a role?

If there was a class teacher role, should an experienced teacher be able to expect more pay than a less experienced teacher as they should be better at doing the role?

Teacher roles have salary points and are advertised within such points

Headteacher roles also have scale points - depending on the size of the school.

Academies of course are a whole new thing though with pay and conditions.

First 'evidence' as a verb and now school'.

As an aside, both have been in fairly continuous (if infrequent) use in English (in Britain) since the 16th century. Both are perfectly grammatical.

Do you have a point you were trying to make about them?

Unconscious bias training isn't something I'm convinced exists outside of MN

I've had some
www.challcon.com/femi-otitoju---training-director.html
did it, she was great, very enjoyable session.

I have had unconscious bias training in my last two companies

The company I work for has put every single employee (800+) through a 1 day unconcsious bias workshop in the past 12 months

Eyes down clickety click... just got Full House with 'lady'

Morphene, what experience do you have of being an airline pilot? Or cabin crew, for that matter?

As a female airline pilot with nearly 20 years experience in a major airline, flying a 330 ton aircraft with 350 people on 14hr overnight flights on a regular basis I can tell you that you are spouting rubbish and come across as clueless about the profession if you think it is barely any different from the skill levels required to be cabin crew.

The cabin crew I work with are mostly fabulous and committed to their jobs, and many of them are intelligent and well-educated, but the fact is that flying an airliner is substantially harder than dealing with the passengers on it. There is so much more to it than just pressing a button and letting a computer do it all. I have a science degree as well as my commercial flying licence, and I'm absolutely sure it was a far more expensive and strenuous course to become a pilot than to get a degree.

I'm tired thanks to arguing the female side of things regarding the GPG over on my company pilots' forum - thanks for showing me that some women are equally as capable of idiotic statements on subjects they know nothing about.

Totally agree Box. Sorry Morphene, but you're talking bollocks.

Even with my, admittedly, very limited experience of the differing job descriptions of pilots and cabin crew, I still know that a pilot's job is much harder and therefore should pay substantially more.

That isn't to say that cabin crew don't work hard, but a pilot's job, training and responsibilities are completely different. 300+ people could literally die and millions of pounds worth of damage be done if they fuck up on the job!

Well said Box, fed up of banging on, not only my airline's but Balpa's door about this issue & can't quite believe the cr*p bring spouted here by other females. I've only just finished paying off my £120K loan for my flying training (12 years) ago & I'm one of the lucky ones in a good airline.

Well said box.

The question is, why is Ryanair’s gender pay gap so much greater than EasyJet’s? Same industry, same business model...

Same industry, same business model

Michael O'Leary could be a factor.... I hear he can be difficult to work with as a pilot.

Sorry Morphene, but you're talking bollocks.
A generous summary.

Could it be the country of base that differentiates EasyJet and Ryanair? What's Aer Lungus 's pay gap?

This is the UK paygap so I am assuming this is the UK end of Ryanair's operations.

Ireland also has paygap statistics, which are better than the UK's (marginally).

I do agree we should stop quibbling over the skills and responsibilities required for pilots vs cabin crew but I still think the gap could be narrowed by a)paying cabin crew more than the pittance they are paid and removing all the commission for sales nonsense and b) encouraging more women into roles such as pilots and engineers.

We established over on my company’s BALPA forum that in our airline at least women were paid the same basic salary for the same length of service, aircraft type and route. But women, especially those with children, are more likely to select themselves into positions where they have a greater control over their work/life balance and where they are not away so many nights.

Take me - I’m a long haul senior first officer working on the lowest part time contract I can get. I only go to work twice a month, and often go for the shortest trips I can. I can earn sufficient income to give my family a comfortable lifestyle doing this. Other people I trained with though have become captains on much more money. I could have this, but it would make it much harder to be around for my kids, even though the relative complexity of the jobs is the same. I am currently pay capped as a result of falling foul of the company’s policy which is supposed to force pilots of a certain experience level to apply for command. In the meantime, younger ambitious men who are much more junior than me anyway and don’t have the luxury of writing their own roster are taking these commands, getting the pay rise and earning more than me.

In effect, I have selected myself into a slightly less well paid position in order to gain control over my time with my family.

I suspect the issue with Ryanair is company culture as led from the top is unappealing to women - I would rather chew my own leg off than fly for Michael O’Leary. This is the boss who’s company has come closest to hull loss when a grieving parent who’d lost a child only 3 days previously was sat at the controls of an airliner and momentarily lost his grip on his state of mind. This doesn’t portray a particularly family friendly company.

Ciampino incident here

don’t have the luxury of writing their own roster are taking these commands

You would think that Ryanair UK pilots would be one of the more appealing bases for rostering though, so if being close to home is more important for women, then the UK numbers would be higher.

Or is it just that there are so many more options in the UK with the better airlines that you can be home more?

Well in the UK, someone who wants to fly mainly shorthaul could work for Jet2, Easyjet, Flybe and probably others I have forgotten.

All will do shifts where the job for the day is to fly to Barcelona and back for example, or like one of the Flybe routes that I use where they will fly from Liverpool to the Isle of Man and back again two or three times during the day - I've been to the Isle of Man for the day and the pilot and crew in the morning and the afternoon were the same people.

Maybe the other airlines offer better pay and conditions? Or maybe Ryanair discriminate against female pilots?

Or maybe more female pilots work like back where instead of doing a lot of shifts of 5-10 hours a month, they will do a smaller number of long haul flights where they may be away a few days but only work 2/3 times a month.

I would rather fly two 3-5 day trips a month than short haul. In my company flying short haul doesn't mean you are more likely to be at home overnight, as all those early morning flights from XYZ have to be crewed by someone who spent the night in that place. If I am going to be away overnight for 2-3 nights in a row I would rather have the days in the middle off duty somewhere like Barbados or Singapore or New York than be landing, off to hotel for minimum legal rest, then doing it all over again the next day, and the next. I am able to have a day to myself and I can go to the toilet in my hotel room all by myself without someone following me to tell me about the latest Pokemon! Flying long haul night shifts does mean you end up with weird tiredness when you get home, but you can slump on your own sofa to get over it, and I am now at a point where both kids can make me a cup of tea

Part of the comments regarding flight attendants and pilots was in response to this comment

It's not like the stewardesses would move into piloting if it was just more female friendly. They don't have the education for it

When i think most would agree its not education

Its training

"When i think most would agree its not education

Its training"

You are absolutely right - we are trained and trained and trained and trained again. This year I will have 2 simulator checks (exams) to keep my licence and then I'll get another 2 days in the simulator training, a day re-training on safety and emergency procedures, and a flight safety ground school day, as a bare minimum.

However, a basic knowledge of geography, biology, and an in depth education in maths and physics is also essential before you start the training. Without maths you are going to struggle with the navigation exams (where a very good grasp of trigonometry is essential) and without physics you are going to struggle with stuff like Bernoulli's Theory, venturi effects, energy management, theory of flight/lift, etc. In many jobs a degree is an indication that you are able to apply yourself to a certain level of study and work. It's the same with aviation. I don't disagree that many of our cabin crew are educated, but ALL of our pilots are educated.