Journal of Air Transport Management 86 (2020) 101823 Available online 23 April 2020 0969-6997/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Gender in the cockpit: Challenges faced by female airline pilots € Ozge Yanıko� glu * , Sena Kılıç , Hatice Küçük€ onal Faculty of Aviation and Aeronautical Sciences, Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Gender discrimination Gender stereotype Aviation industry Female pilots ABSTRACT Despite the increasing number of female pilots in recent years, the aviation industry is still considered a male- dominated one. Being underrepresented in an occupation and working in an industry with masculine dis- courses create several challenges for female pilots. This study aims to identify gender-related career challenges experienced by female pilots based in Turkey. The fndings of the study reveal that female commercial airline pilots have been experiencing gender prejudice and discrimination in the workplace. These prejudices and discriminations place considerable psychological burden on them which can signifcantly affect their behaviour and performance. Considering the fndings of the study, several recommendations are given to the airline companies and the society in supporting female pilots’ career advancement. 1. Introduction The number of female commercial pilots in the aviation industry has rapidly increased in the last decade. However, the percentage of female pilots is still very low. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, only 7.3% of all US FAA pilot certifcates are held by women. The percentage of female pilots among total airline pilots is 4.4% in the USA and 5.2% in the UK (FAA, 2019; CAA, 2019). The sit- uation in Turkey is not different. There are 5 airline companies and fe- male pilots represent only 3.9% of all airline pilots in the country. Working in a male-dominated feld and being underrepresented in an occupation can create several challenges for female pilots (Vermeulen and Mitchell, 2007) which can have negative effect on female pilots’ performance (Matthews et al., 2009). Gender-based challenges experienced by women employees in different societies with different cultures and in different industrial contexts can be different (Mills, 2002; Ridgeway and England, 2007). Although there have been several studies that focused on the career challenges of female pilots (e.g. Davey and Davidson, 2000; Kristovics et al., 2006; Mitchell et al., 2006; Sitler, 2004), to the best of our knowledge, there has been no study that has examined the Turkey case. Thereby, this study aims to identify the gender-related career challenges experienced by female cockpit crew based in Turkey and to give rec- ommendations in supporting their career advancement. 2. Literature review 2.1. Gender stereotypes & gender discrimination Although women constitute almost half of the workforce in most developed nations (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017), they are still underrepresented especially in occupations that have been traditionally dominated by men. Women employees are facing gender-based challenges due to gender discrimination in those occupa- tions. Gender discrimination is any distinction, exclusion, or restriction made to an individual or group of individuals based on gender (EIGE, 2019). Workplace gender discrimination means that an employee is treated differently (positively or negatively) because of his/her gender. Some examples of workplace gender discrimination include: � not being hired or being given a lower position because of gender, � being held to different working conditions, payments, standards and performance evaluations because of gender or because of not acting in a way that conforms to traditional gender role, � being denied a promotion, pay raise, or training opportunity based on gender, � using hostile remarks about people of a certain gender, insulting, or using offensive names or slurs against people with a certain gender, � sexual harassment - requests for sexual favours, or other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature, and � physical or non-physical bullying behaviour based on a person’s gender (NSPCC, 2019). * Corresponding author. E-mail address: ozge.peksatici@ozyegin.edu.tr ( € O. Yanıko� glu). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Air Transport Management journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jairtraman https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101823 Received 8 January 2020; Received in revised form 8 April 2020; Accepted 9 April 2020