December 2, 2004

Asked what happened the first time a female voice crackled on the microphone from the cockpit as she made the routine announcement, welcoming people on board and explaining the altitude they were flying at, Ayesha R. Naveed says she knew everything was fine, “when people wished to meet me and see the cockpit and young women asked for my autograph on their boarding passes,” writes Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Neatly dressed with manicured nails and coiffered hair, just the right amount of make-up with diamonds peeping out, Ayesha Rabia Naveed, could very well be your next-door neighbour going for a coffee morning. Except that for the last 14 years for most of her waking hours, she’s been up in the skies, at a high altitude of cooped up in the cockpit, fumbling with a zillion buttons all around her while keeping an ear to what is being offered as incessant instructions from the ground or other crafts flying in the vicinity. She hardly ever gets time to socialize: “I’m awake when the world is asleep.”

But then that is the life Naveed has chosen for herself, but not for once has she regretted her decision. While there is no denying the giant strides Pakistani women have taken, Ayesha Rabia’s profession still seems a little exceptional, also quite glamorous as far as womens’ occupations go.

She acknowledges that she had an advantage with an uncle a pilot and her father a senior captain at Lahore’s Flying Club in Walton where they went for joyrides. She got interested in taking it up as a hobby after her intermediate and flew a Cessna at 17. “That was my first solo flight,” she says and adds, “air is a different medium altogether and while it’s fine to take it up as a hobby, an expensive one I must concede, to take it up as a profession you really need to be a little more than just plain interested. You have to really be willing to sacrifice everything –– your family, your timings, yourself — and that, believe me, is not easy,” she says, harbouring a guilt trip like any other working mom with a teenage daughter and a son.

“It’s hard keeping a balance, but I manage. I’ve got a very supportive husband and my kids are used to my topsy-turvy lifestyle. When I’m home I try to make up for the lost time. And during exams or parent-teacher meetings or whenever they have been sick, I make sure that I’m there for them.” And when all the chores are done and there’s time to spare she likes to play golf, go swimming, listen to music, even watch the soap operas and painstakingly take down recipes from the various food channels.

“I went for the glamour – the uniform — and the fact that I wanted to travel to all the distant places that I’d heard so much about,” Naveed says simply on what motivated her to take up this career. But once she got completely hooked to flying, she set her mind to joining the Pakistan International Airlines. “I got my commercial pilot’s license and instrument rating in 1977, and in 1979 got the assistant flying instructor’s rating. In 1990, I took my first commercial flight as a first-officer from Karachi to Pasni and back. It was a Fokker.”

Walking across the tarmac, very conscious in her new uniform, the cap perched smartly on her head and climbing the plane to enter the cockpit, young Ayesha Naveed was “very nervous and at the same time excited.” She was finally taking the plunge.

Reminiscing that first moment 14 years ago, she says, “As I began the cockpit preparation that I had gone through in my mind the previous night a hundred times, I began saying a prayer. Somehow the feeling that I was responsible for the many passengers sitting behind me began to weigh me down.” To this day that feeling remains within her and that perhaps is what keeps her alert. However, she says, “I believe everyone sitting in the cockpit feels that way. In fact, flying a plane is teamwork. One person’s decision is everyone’s decision.”

Asked what happened the first time a female voice crackled on the microphone from the cockpit as she made the routine announcement, welcoming people on board and explaining the altitude they were flying at, Ayesha says she knew everything was fine, “when people wished to meet me and see the cockpit and young women asked for my autograph on their boarding passes.”

And since then there has been no looking back for Ayesha Rabia Naveed who has savoured the taste of accomplishment and remained at the helm. She says being a woman in a man’s world there have been many firsts for her — first to fly Boeing 737 as its first officer in 1992, then Airbus 300 in the same capacity in 1994 and co-pilot the Jumbo 747 in 1999. Explaining the procedure Naveed says, “For every aircraft that you fly, you have to sit for a test and the passing score is 70 per cent. One has to go through eight months of rigorous ground training that involves technical and simulator training followed by under-supervision flying before we are cleared. Every six months we are given health check-ups and then have to go through continuous refreshers before we’re given a clean bill and our licenses renewed.”

And have there been any untoward incidents where she’s felt lonely and vulnerable being in a male-dominated field — occupational hazards, discrimination? And the rumours one hears now and then about sexual harassment at her workplace? “I’ve never really come across the situation nor have I heard of it from others. These things can happen anywhere,” she asks in an irate tone. I explain that it’s because such stories have surfaced off and on.

“ If you ask my male colleagues they will tell you that the presence of female colleagues in the cockpit has brought about a far more congenial atmosphere. It’s like being part of a family.” “I have paved the way for other women to come, I faced many hurdles and have worked very hard. Nobody can point a finger and disprove my abilities,” she says.

And, yet, even after 14 years of service, she’s not been made a full-fledged captain. Asked if she’s completed all requirements, she answers in the affirmative. And other male colleagues who started off with her, have they become pilots? She shifts uneasily in her chair and says, “Some have but it’s a little more complex, suffice to say, I’m eligible to fly as a captain having completed the 500 hours of flying, but there has to be a vacancy for me to become a captain. And then there is the career plan,” and we leave it at that as she doesn’t want to discuss the subject further.

And yet she keeps her distance once she’s off duty. “I’m not overly friendly, yet I’m courteous, I like to think of myself as a practical and down-to-earth person and am not given to nakhras.”

As for her jaunts abroad, she says these have proved to be invaluable on education. “I’ve seen the world and it’s given me a perspective of life in particular and things in general that I would otherwise not have known. It has enriched my life and at the same time taught me to be independent. The job itself teaches you to be bold. You have to have strong nerves and persevere.”

The downside of it, she says, is: “that I’ve become a perfectionist and I get bothered when things don’t come up to my standard.”

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)