She woke at 03:30, fed her baby, put him back to sleep and then headed off to the airport by 04:00. When her children were younger, Kohal only flew one- or two-hour flights. “There were no limits for what we could do.”
“I never considered being a pilot different from being an engineer or a teacher,” she said. However, Kohal never thought twice about being in the airline business. And there are stories in the media and social media of notes being left on flights, or complaints being made, by passengers upset that they’ve flown with a female pilot. GoAir, a budget airline in India, said in 2013 that it only wanted to hire small, young females to be flight attendants in order to save money on fuel by keeping the weight of the plane down. In 2009, Air India fired ten female flight attendants for being overweight. Kohal says she hasn’t run into sexism, but other females in the airline industry have and continue to face hurdles simply because of their gender. This family support has helped her excel, but many women entering traditionally male-dominated professions in India encounter more obstacles. Kohal’s doctor mother and engineer father taught her and her sister that they weren’t any different from men and could do anything they wanted as long as they had fun doing it. There are only 4,000 female pilots worldwide, versus 130,000 male pilots, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots.
Kohal earned her pilot’s license in 1994 and since 1996 has been a pilot with India’s Jet Airways - she’s one of 600 female pilots in India - and she’s been a captain since 2009. “After the car I moved on to faster modes of transportation.” “It was great to be able to do things on my own without having anyone ferry me around,” she said. When Kohal turned 18 and officially received her driver’s license, her passion for driving intensified. “I just loved the thought of getting away,” she said. She loved being in control of the vehicle and the freedom that came with it. But her passion for planes started sitting in the driving seat on the open road, not wide-open skies.Īs a teenager, Kohal, now age 45, would take her parents’ car, unbeknownst to them, for joy rides around town. Priti Kohal’s love of flying began when she was a 16-year-old living in Mumbai.