International pilot’s day: It’s 2025, yet female pilots like Trish are still outnumbered nine to one in the aviation industry

Fewer than 10 per cent of commercial pilots in Australia are women and Trish Curry is keenly aware of that fact after several years in the industry.

Globally, that figure is even lower, sitting at around five per cent according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) data.

And while the participation of women in the aviation industry at large has been increasing, they’re still drastically underrepresented in the cockpits and C-suites of airlines around the world.

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This International Pilots’ Day (April 26), Curry wants to see that change.

“It’s almost impossible to be in the aviation industry without crossing paths with someone who might think that you don’t have a place in aviation just because you were female,” she tells 9honey.

“I definitely don’t want to sugar-coat it or put a rose colored glasses on, because you will face those people […] but you learn to deal with those people and have the perseverance to keep going.”

The 29-year-old grew up thinking you had to be “really smart” to become a pilot – especially as a woman – so when she struggled with physics in year 11 and 12, Curry put her dreams of flying on the backburner.

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Instead she went into nursing, picked up part-time flight training towards the end of her degree, then went full-time once she’d graduated.

She’d just kicked off her flying career when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and she had to shift gears again.

”I realised that my nursing degree was actually really handy because a lot of my friends in the airlines, they’d lost their jobs, had been made redundant or stood down,” she says.

Curry spent two years nursing full-time in the Northern Territory before landing a job as a charter pilot, flying everything from mail to medical experts into remote communities across the NT.

That’s how her passion for the aeromedical industry was born, leading her to her current role as a CareFlight pilot.

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CareFlight provides aeromedical services across Australia, jetting doctors and nurses to patients and providing care as they’re transported to hospitals around the country.

It’s an incredibly rewarding role for Curry, who understands just how difficult it can be for Australians in remote and regional areas to access medical care – especially in high acuity cases when every second counts.

“People who live in cities and have access to healthcare at their doorstep may not realise or understand for other people in the country […] that healthcare is actually not available,” she says.

Curry’s nursing training has also helped on the job, allowing her to assist doctors and nurses with small tasks on the ground and keep a level head in stressful situations.

It’s not an easy job but without pilots like Curry, more than 9000 Australians who rely on CareFlight every year would be left stranded. That’s why she’s so proud to do it.

That, and the looks on the faces of young female patients when they look to the cockpit and see a woman in the pilot’s seat. Seeing them light up will never get old.

“I love to turn around and be like, ‘You can do this too. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise’,” she says.

“There’s not many of us [female pilots], but we do exist. It’s good to be a role model.”

Since 2019, the Women in the Aviation Industry Initiative has funded a range of activities to get women and girls interested and involved in the industry, reaching more than 300,000 female Australians in the process.

In 2024 alone, the initiative funded forums to support women leaders in aviation, outreach activities for school students, behavioural interventions to influence cultural change in the industry and more, all aimed at getting more women into aviation.

Meanwhile, Qantas announced its aim to boost female intake at its pilot academy from 20 per cent to 40 per cent by 2028.

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Being a woman in the aviation industry isn’t always easy and Curry still faces setbacks as a female pilot, but she can see change on the horizon and hopes to be part of it.

In the meantime, she’s happy just being someone who Aussie girls with dreams of flying can look up to.

“With hard work and perseverance, you’ll be able to overcome those barriers,” she says.

“And in my experience, those setbacks are actually what make you a better person and better professionally as well, so don’t let those setbacks scare you out of it. Just keep going.”

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