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Strategy that delivers
Changing the gender imbalance in the pilot profession
easyJet's AMY JOHNSON INITIATIVE
This initiative was about changing the gender imbalance in the pilot profession.
easyJet was already in a better position than many airlines and at the start of the campaign in September 2015, women made up 5% of the total pilot community and 6% of new pilot recruits.
Given that the issue was about overturning well established attitudes and behaviours we had to use PR to actively draw attention to the issue and encourage people across society – from parents to teachers and to girls and women of all ages – to think and act differently.
The initiative was focused on; exposing the industry gender imbalance, setting an ambitious public target for easyJet, raising the profile of female pilots by providing positive female role models and showcasing the opportunities available to women at easyJet.
Women have been in aviation since its early days and we secured the support of aviation pioneer Amy Johnson’s family to use her name for our campaign.
In October 2015, at an event hosted by easyJet CEO Carolyn McCall and the Transport Secretary, I announced easyJet’s Amy Johnson Flying Initiative aimed at doubling the number of female new entrant pilots to 12% by October 2017.
CHANGING THE IMAGE OF PILOTS
We started to ensure easyJet’s public facing materials including website, and recruitment ads featuring pilots were gender balanced showing male and female pilots rather than traditional images of male pilots and female cabin crew to start to change the face of aviation.
RECRUITMENT ACTIVITY AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT
easyJet’s recruitment team put a focus on attracting female candidates which included a funding initiative alongside a commitment to providing additional support for developing and retaining female pilots.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
We focused on engaging and motivating our female pilots to become ambassadors and carry our school and university visits to inspire the next generation of female pilots. We supported pilots with training, support materials and also drove local publicity with media activity around the visits.
PR CAMPAIGN
We used one of our pilot ambassadors Kate McWilliams to highlight high flying women in the profession. At 26 Kate McWilliam was the world’s youngest female captain. The story went worldwide and Kate was trending on twitter as a result. She was able to speak to and inspire the exact demographic we wanted to attract to the profession.
Sep 2016 Youngest Female pilot
easyJet held an event announcing the target of 12% had been met a year early and to set a new and even more stretching target by 2020. In celebration the airline named an aircraft after Amy Johnson which was unveiled by the airline’s CEO and around 15 female pilots and entrant cadets including some on the Amy Johnson initiative. The new target was previewed by The Times and over 20 media attended the event with all of the female pilots and our CEO undertaking interviews with media including Radio 4 Today programme and Sky news.
Dec 2016 Female pilot milestone
In celebration of IWD 2017 I arranged a flight operated by an all-female crew - 2 pilots and 4 cabin crew and most of the ground crew. Coverage was widespread with easyJet receiving prominent mentions and pictures in most International Women’s day pieces. The photo of two female pilots in the cockpit of the Amy Johnson liveried aircraft featured heavily in coverage – dominating The Times piece.
Mar 2017 - International Women’s Day all female flight
Broadcast of flagship ITV 1 documentary on pilot training at easyJet, with particular focus on female pilots. The easyJet PR team managed hundreds of hours of filming with ITN Productions for three one-hour documentary programmes broadcast in prime time. At launch we worked with the ITN PR team to promote the series to TV reviewers, lifestyle magazines and other national print and online media. Our female pilots promoted the series across other ITV programmes such as Good Morning Britain. The series was so successful a second season aired in 2019.
Jul 2017 – Pilot documentary series
To keep the campaign going and to ensure a wide and diverse audience saw it, we set up interview opportunities with our female pilots with national broadcast and print, regional, trade and online media. These were undertaken across Europe as well as the UK including a front page piece in Italy’s most influential daily newspaper.
2016 – 2017 - Pilot Ambassador interviews
Over 80 school and university visits were made in the first year by a variety of our female pilots. The airline worked with Aviatrix, BWPA (the British Women’s Pilots Association), Inspire the future and AeroZone as well as pilot training providers to deliver the key messages of the campaign. easyJet also partnered with STEM organisations to promote female take-up of STEM (science, engineering, technology and maths) and with the Scottish and UK Governments and others across Europe.
2016 – 2017 – Pilot events and visits
The press coverage helped us to achieve more than 600 applications for the six Amy Johnson positions. All six places were filled and the successful women started their training in February 2017.
Overall, as a result of the PR campaign 33 female new entrant pilots were recruited and so easyJet achieved the 12% target a year early in October 2016.
At that time the airline had 164 female pilots in total, of whom 62 are Captains – around 14% of the world’s total. Both figures are set to increase thanks to the campaign.
23 pilots have taken part in over 100 PR events, stakeholder events or community events in the first year. Community and industry organisations across Europe continue to request pilot visits directly and in significant volume.