First female BA pilot hits out at airlines’ ‘poor’ maternity leave
BRITISH AIRWAYS’ first female pilot says she is “disappointed” at “poor” maternity leave terms given by airlines.
Lynn Barton, who broke through the company’s glass ceiling in 1987, told The Daily Telegraph airlines must stop paying lip service to being diverse.
At present nearly all airlines, including British Airways, offer six weeks’ maternity leave at 90 per cent of pay – the statutory minimum.
On Saturday, this newspaper revealed that British Airways “gagged” a group of its pilots who wanted to talk about the issue to Parliament.
Ms Barton praised the “brave” women who tried to have their voices heard, and said she was very surprised when she found out how limited airlines’ maternity policies were.
“I had no idea how poorly all the major airlines were doing,” she said. “I hope they realise the error of their ways, get their act together and say – this is not good enough, chaps. You can’t just pay lip service to trying to be an equal opportunities employer.”
She said the debt most pilots accumulated to afford the tens of thousands of pounds of training they needed made it harder for female pilots who wanted a family. They also struggled with childcare costs.
Just 4.6 per cent of pilots are women, according to the latest data from the Civil Aviation Authority.
Ms Barton said she was “very disappointed” that the proportion of female pilots is so low more than 30 years after she became British Airways pioneer.
Last month Balpa, the pilots’ union, organised a meeting in Parliament for about 30 pilots from different airlines to highlight “grossly inadequate” industry-wide policies. Before the meeting, British Airways wrote to Balpa to ban BA pilots from telling their stories.
A British Airways spokesman said: “We, like the majority of UK airlines, offer industry-standard maternity pay for our pilots. We are proud to have the most female pilots of any UK airline.”