Sri Lanka women take to the air, despite air pockets

The future for women in Sri Lankan aviation seems to be taking a turn for the better with a female air traffic controller set to become the country’s chief air traffic controller.
And a few young women have qualified as pilots or joined flying schools.
There are now several women working as air traffic controllers and a few pilots but no military pilots or aircraft engineers, Ashanthi Fernando, one of Sri Lanka’s few female pilots, told a meeting of aviation enthusiasts recently.
The inaugural meeting of the newly formed Sri Lanka Aeronautical Society (SLAeS), whose aim is to kindle public interest in aviation, heard that Sri Lanka’s first female military pilot, Amy Jonklaas, flew Spitfires in World War 2.
And Sri Lanka had female air traffic controllers before India did although now the country was lagging far behind in the number of women employed in aviation.
Many other Asian countries were now rapidly recruiting women into their commercial fleets, Fernando said, but the number of women entering the field of aviation in Sri Lanka was minimal.
Now, however, the situation was changing with domestic operators and regional airlines emerging, Fernando said.
One draw back was the lack of awareness of aviation as a career, especially outside the urban areas where she said there were many talented youth.
Sherina Casseer, an air traffic controller now doing training, told the same meeting that very few women were applying to join air traffic control despite there being no prejudice against recruiting females.
Female fortunes may be changing now with a senior lady officer tipped to be the head of air navigation services. Casseer said she faced no discrimination at the hands of her male colleagues in air traffic control and was accepted when she proved she could do the job of safely managing aircraft in crowded skies as good as any male.
03/10/07 Lanka Business Online, Sri Lanka