An all-female Tui flight including pilots, cabin crew, customer airport representatives, station operation coordinators and ground operations left Gatwick for Tenerife this morning to celebrate International Women’s Day.
An announcement was read out on the flight, raising awareness of International Women’s Day.
The Gatwick flight was one of five all-female crewed Tui flights operating to mark International Woman’s Day including Hannover Airport, Brussels Airport Zaventem, Rotterdam The Hague and Göteborg Landvetter, heading to Tenerife, Las Palmas and Gran Canaria.
Dawn Wilson, chief operations officer at Tui Airline, said: “Today has been a fantastic opportunity to celebrate and recognise the female employees within our airlines.
“Our crew and operations team go above and beyond to give our customers memorable experiences, and while an all-female flight nowadays is more of a regular occurrence, it is the first time we’ve marked the occasion across all our markets and involved our ground-based employees too.
“I joined Tui as cabin crew in 1988, moving into many senior roles within Tui, and I’ve experienced so many positive changes over those years in particular the progress we’ve made in breaking down gender stereotypes, in traditionally male-dominated roles such as pilots, engineers and operations.
“I am proud that we have always recognised and appreciate women in our organisation and is testament to this that there are now even more opportunities for female colleagues.”
Marine Larkin was among the cabin crew on the Gatwick flight and has worked at Tui for 19 years.
She said: “It was a real honour to represent all women that work at Tui. We really do have some incredible woman of all ages and from many different cultures.
“To any women considering a career in aviation, I’d say just go for it as it helps build resilience, confidence, and character.”
Marco Ciomperlik, Tui Group chief airline officer, added: “Having all our markets involved in the activity has made the day even more memorable and as well as being a celebration for our airlines and people, we hope it will also help inspire and encourage the next generation to pursue a career in aviation one day.
“We have a number of airline initiatives including our UK&I and Belgium MPL pilot cadet schemes and our Engineering & Maintenance apprenticeship opportunities.”
Tui is also organising an internal live broadcast to celebrate the day featuring different locations and offices across the company, hearing from female colleagues about their jobs, their roles and views on inclusion and equity.
