The UAE will soon open a chapter of Women in Aviation (WAI), the international not-for-profit organization that supports and enables women in what is even today considered a “male-dominated” career.
Women in Aviation UAE is all set to launch within the month, even as final discussions and licenses are in the process of coming through, according to Christiina Tervo and Mervat Sultan, who will be co-founders of the UAE chapter.
Christina Tervo, owner, partner and proprietor of Wolston Sky in Ras Al Khaimah, said: “WAI was first started in the US by Dr. Peggy Chabrian, and held its first conference in 1990 with 150 people attending. The 24thConference was held last March with some 3400 women attending it. We have some 8,500 members worldwide, from all levels of the profession – cabin crew to astronauts to ground handlers and technical staff. We now have 78 chapters, including the Concorde Chapter in the UK, and the Deutschland Chapter in Germany. We are involved in networking and bringing together people with an interest in aviation, but today have scholarships and mentoring programmes, and empower women in the field.”
Mervat Sultan is the finance manager of RamJet, an aviation support company. She said that the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) had verbally approved the constituting of the WAI UAE Chapter and hoped that things would be finalized in under one month. She revealed that plans to start a UAE Chapter had been underway for six years, and were only coming to fruition today owing to the growing interest in aviation in general as a career option in the UAE.
Captain Aysha Al Hamili, the first Emirati female pilot, who is currently the UAE’s Permanent Representative to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), said: “I had to struggle with family, society that was unaccepting of me taking up a flying job, in fact it was just my sheer persistence that made me finally bag a job, at the Abu Dhabi Aviation after seven months of going back-and-forth, and even taking out a big cheque to ensure that I was committed to this effort.”