This is your Captain speaking...
 

On my last flight on CX from MNL on Sunday, when I heard the click, tap tap on the intercom, I was expecting the usual deep voice of "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain speaking and my name is ... " ..BUT I was totally surprised to hear, instead the voice of a woman !! An Australian woman at that..

I didn't know CX has a 747 Captain who is a woman ! She was pleasant , professional and well, made me pay attention to what she was saying .. including the "Cabin crew, be seated for takeoff" command. I didn't catch her name though..

The flight also had minimal turbulence.. and wow, even the landing was smooth..

I am totally flabbergasted ! :D

I had a female captain AKL-HKG in December. I saw her when she turned up for duty for gate but forgot to note her ranking at that time... so I pretty much had the same reaction as you when she made her announcement on board!

Welcome to the 1970s.

Actually, although you can correct me if I am wrong, but it was not until the mid 80s that there was the first female 747 pilot.

She didn't necessarily have to be captain. She could've been doing her command traing where the F/O acts as captain. So he/she makes all the PA's, fills out the paperwork, etc. As a passenger you would have no idea that she wasn't the real captain until you see she only has three stripes. (If indeed she was an F/O at the time.) Thats the way we do command training at CX! ;)

I was referring to women as commercial airline pilots in general.

oh i see...as to 747s, i recall it is rather rare. it should not be this rare, however IMO

You have problem with female pilot/captain? ;)

Yep, I had a FO doing his second and final leg for command on my KIX turn in September. The only reason I knew was because he referred to being accompanied on the flight deck that day by Captain So-and-so and I asked the crew whether it was a check ride, to which I was told the FO was completing his command training.

FWIW, CX did not hire its first female pilot until 1996:

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaw...913/feat7.html

Male ISMs, female Captains.... what has CX come to... :p

There is nothing wrong to have Male ISMs and Female Captains though, as long as they have the capacity to willingness to do their jobs properly. ;)

Had a female captain with a Japanese-sounding name on a recent HKG-ORD flight. No offense to the male pilots, but I actually felt slightly safer. With affirmative action or preferences nowhere near as common in Asia as in the U.S., I suspected she probably had to work twice as hard--meaning, prove she's twice as good--as her male colleagues to reach that level.

I had Captain Candy Wu on one of my flights a couple of weeks ago SIN-HKG. Like the OP I was a little surprised when I heard a nice female voice on the PA but certain it was a pleasant surprise! Not sure who was the pilot flying but the flight was smooth and no issues at all! ^

Why should they not have this capacity?

Every Captain, Second Officer, Engineer and Flight Attendant I have ever flown with wanted to achieve a safe landing as much as I ever did.

ralph

Did she have that typical CX sense of humour. If not, she should be sent to work at another airline that likes keeping things professional!

BTW, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID7F5...eature=related

There was a quite attractive youngish blonde female captain/fo (not sure which) on hkg-jfk last year. Quite surprising.

That could be my colleage's cousin - was she in her early 20s with long hair? (well maybe you couldn't tell if its under the hat)

My colleage's cousin took an offer from CX as a pilot trainee and started flying as a second officer last year on 747s.

at elast you wont have to worry about pilots messing with FAs...
oh sorry i forgot about pilots messing about among themselves :b

Was a 77W on hkg-jfk.

I had this same AUssie Cap a few weeks ago flying MNL-HKG. She seems professional until she explained our late departure was because the inbound aircraft was late arriving. Only we were on CX 904 which leaves at 6:20AM and the inbound arrives around midnight so I could not understand why 6 hours is not enough time to service and clean the aircraft. ;)

Not that I'm an expert on CX rostering... But in that case I reckon the delayed inbound crew were also expected to operate the early morning departure. Minimum rest requirements would thus dictate a delayed departure.