JEDDAH: To mark Brunei's National Day, Royal Brunei Airlines's first ever all-female flight crew flew from Brunei to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, according to The Independent.

On Feb 23, Captain Sharifah Czarena Surainy, Senior First Officer Dk Nadiah Pg Khashiem and Senior First Officer Sariana Nordin flew a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on flight BI081 to the kingdom, where women cannot drive a car.

Captain Czarena became a captain at Royal Brunei four years ago, the first female captain at a flag carrier in Southeast Asia.

“Being a pilot, people normally see it as being a male dominant occupation,” she told The Brunei Times in 2012.

“As a woman, a Bruneian woman, it is such a great achievement. It’s really showing the younger generation or the girls especially that whatever they dream of, they can achieve it,” said the captain, who completed her initial pilot training at the Cabair Flying School in Cranfield.

Royal Brunei Airlines offers an Engineering Apprentice programme to both males and females, committed to empowering women in the airline industry.

The first all-women flight by an international airline also drew attention to the restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia.

Read: Saudi FM says 'be patient' on women's rights

In recent years, women have used social media to protest the ban on women drivers and even been referred to terrorism courts for driving in protest.

Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi were sent to the anti-terrorism court in connection to opinions they expressed in tweets and in social media, four people close to the two women told The Associated Press. The two were in custody for 70 days, the longest yet for any women who defied the driving ban.

Although there is no explicit law disallowing women from driving, authorities do not issue them driver's licenses and conservative Saudi clerics regularly issue rulings in favour of preventing women from taking the wheel.