AirAsia's First Female Pilot - Janet Chen

A Sabah woman has successfully turned a hobby into a high-flying career and become the first Malaysian woman to fly a commercial Boeing 737!It is not a childhood dream but Janet Chen has made a hobby into a career for more than 20 years."I am just a simple person who likes flying," said Chen, who joined AirAsia in May. Playing down her feat, Chen said she knew many female pilots who held private licences and it was just a personal decision whether they wanted to fly commercial aircraft.She said she obtained her commercial pilot licence in 1981 after a brief working stint as an accounts executive. After graduating from Monash University in Australia in the 1970s, the Economics degree holder said she had no idea what she wanted to do when she returned to Kota Kinabalu. While looking for a job, she found out Yayasan Sabah was offering flying scholarships and applied."I was the only female among the first batch of successful applicants sent for a 13-month training course in Scotland," she said. Chen, who is the youngest of four children, said while her father was supportive of her decision, her conservative mother was not. Chen later joined Sabah Air and during the next 21 years, took up various assignments, including flying the former Transport Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ling Liong Sik on a chartered flight, flying emergency medical flights and taking geographers on mapping missions and photographers for shoots. "Some said to me-'I take my hat off to you' and 'Oh, it's a lady pilot'-when they saw me," she said, laughing.Chen said she received a lot of encouragement, especially from men. Many of her friends and former colleagues had also called to ask her to apply for the job with AirAsia, which was looking for a female pilot.She said AirAsia's offer enabled her to "venture into something new.""Things were just falling into place. The right time, right place and right people," said the AirAsia first officer. Chen said she was grateful that AirAsia accepted her and hoped this would open the door for more women to become pilots."If you don't try, you will never know whether you can do it," she said. "You got to have the aptitude to fly! That's what we call it-the aptitude to fly!" she quipped.Chen, who is married and has a 10-year-old daughter, said just like any other working mother, time management and family support were important to her. "Getting your priorities right is important and you must face up to your responsibilities. "You just have to be organised, like any working woman," she added.

Source : www.grangier.fr/news/journal-2003-09-23.txt