“Quiero Ser” [I want to be], Iberia’s programme to promote aviation careers for women

• 35 teenage girls attending high school learned on site about the lives and work of aircraft technicians, pilots, and aeronautical engineers.  
• Also participating in the programme are the CAE pilot training school and the Technovation Girls platform promoting technical careers for women.
• The “Quiero Ser” [I Want to Be] programme was conceived under Iberia’s Diversity and Inclusion Plan, launched in 2018.

 “I want to be a pilot and I think this is a very good experience for finding out whether or not this job is really for me.” – “When I’m older I want to be an aerospace engineer because engines have always fascinated me.” – ”To have a direct contact with your future work helps you to discover whether you really like it, and it awakens your curiosity.”

These are comments made by three of the 35 15-year-old girls that Iberia brought together in its first-ever “I Want to Be” event, part of in a programme aimed at attracting women to careers in aviation as pilots, engineers, or maintenance technicians.  

Many of the 35 high school students are a part of the Technovation Girls platform which encourages young women to study technical subjects.  Others are daughters of Iberia employees. 

Over two days they visited Iberia headquarters and its Madrid maintenance hangar and aircraft engine workshop, experienced the flight simulators used at the CAE pilot training school, and met the first female members of the Spanish Air Force aerobatic team, the Patrulla Águila [“Eagle Patrol”]. 

The girls met with Victoria Hurtado, with 20 years’ experience as an avionics technician, and the only woman in her 100-person department at Iberia’s Hangar 6. They also met with 22-year-old Sonia Abellán, an Iberia co-pilot who is following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather as an airline pilot. 

“Quiero Ser” [I want to Be], promoting careers in aviation for young women.

Iberia’s “Quiero Ser” [I want to be] programme gives girls the opportunity to meet female aviation professionals in person. These include safety engineers, flight engineers, maintenance technicians, commercial and military pilots, and teachers at the CAE pilot training school in Madrid, where students learn to fly Airbus, ATR, Boeing, and Bombardier aircraft.

This direct contact with aviation professionals is timed to coincide with the year these young students must make career choices, orienting their studies accordingly.  

Also participating in this first “Quiero Ser” [I want to be] event is the Technovation Girls platform, which invited its members to take part, and the CAE pilot school which Iberia uses to supply simulator training to its pilots.

The “Quiero Ser” [I Want to Be] programme was developed in the framework of Iberia’s Diversity and Inclusion Plan, which it launched in 2018 to lend greater visibility to its female talent and to promote women at all levels and in all company areas.