Up in the air: Meet Ireland's trail blazing female pilots

Only 3pc of the world's pilots are women - but airlines are hoping that will change. Deirdre Reynolds meets the women who've blazed a trail for female aviators



As a little girl, Sonya Bisset always marvelled at the planes swooping over her family home in North Dublin - but never once dreamed of flying one. Today, the mum of three from Malahide has clocked up millions of air miles as one of the few female pilots on the planet.

"I grew up beside the airport," recalls Sonya, who's now a captain with Aer Lingus, "so I grew up listening to airplanes flying over my house when the old runway was in use.

"It was never something I knew I could do. At school, it was never brought up as an option for a career at all - they never spoke about it."

Bitten by the travel bug, instead the former marketing executive joined the United Nations in Africa, where she was once more surrounded by the sights and sounds of the skies.

"I was the assistant flight coordinator for the World Food Programme flying aid in and out of Southern Sudan and coming up with the flight schedules of all the different NGOs," she tells me.

(Culled from www.independent.ie)