Ayesha Rabia
Captain
Captain Ayesha Rabia became the first lady captain of a commercial airline of Pakistan when she did her first flight as a full fledged captain of Pakistan international airlines on 21st October 2005. She joined PIA as a cadet pilot in 1989.
She did her Matriculation High School from Sacred Heart Convent School, Lahore. She got interested in flying after her Intermediate and Bachelors from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. In 1974, she started flying as a hobby at Lahore Flying Club, Walton and did her first solo flight on a Cessna 172 at the age of seventeen. She got her Commercial Pilot’s License and Instrument rating in 1977. Ayesha obtained her Assistant flying instructors rating in 1979. She obtained her Airline Transport Pilot’s License in 1998.
The atmosphere at home was very conducive. She was inspired by her father, who was a surgeon by profession but used to fly as hobby and had a Private Pilot’s License. Her maternal uncle was also a captain in PIA. Her brother also started learning flying at the same time when she was learning flying and is a captain in PIA.
Then in 1980 she was selected as a cadet pilot in PIA. Four batches of cadet pilots were selected out of which only the first three were called for training initially. She was placed in the fourth batch, due to which her training was delayed. However, during that time she got married to a civil engineer, had children, a daughter and a son, and took an air traffic controlling course at Civil Aviation Authority and even worked there for a short period.
In 1985 when they called her batch and the training started, the Government policy in the country was not very favorable for female e pilots. So she was trained for a marketing course by PIA and worked as a sales promotion officer in the Marketing department in PIA
Then in 1989 the Government policy was revised and she had the opportunity of being trained as a First Officer on f-27 aircraft. Her simulator training for this was conducted at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After flying the F-27 for 500 hours, she was promoted to the Boeing-737 for which she got the simulator training in Houston, Texas, America. Her next promotion came on Airbus-300 as a first officer. After successfully flying this equipment, she was promoted on the Boeing-747 Jumbo in February 1999 and became the first female pilot to fly the Boeing-747 in Pakistan. For this, he ground training classes and simulator training were both conducted at PIA Training Centre, Karachi.
In April 2005, she was promoted and was called to start her training to become a Captain on Fokker F-27 aircraft. Her ground training classes began at PIA Training Centre in Karachi. Her simulator training was conducted in Indonesia. She then flew under the supervision of the instructors of F-27. Then ultimately on October 21st 2005, she flew as a full fledged Captain of Fokker F-27. She flew from Karachi to Turbat then Gwadar and back to Karachi.
Captain Ayesha Rabia has more than 7000 hours of flying experience to her credit and has been flying with PIA for the last almost 16 years. She has flown on both international and domestic routes like America, Europe, Middle East and Fareast.
Captain Ayesha Rabia operated an all female crew flight on 25th January, 2006. Her co-pilot was a lady pilot and cabin crew was also airhostesses. Captain Ayesha along with her female crew members flew form Islamabad to Lahore. This was the first all female crew flight in the Aviation history of Pakistan.
Her hobbies are swimming, sightseeing, tennis, listening to music, watching informative television programs and movies, trying out different recipes and spending time with her family.
Captain Ayesha Rabia has recently been promoted on Boeing 737.
Captain Ayesha Rabia’s sister is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and another brother is doctor specializing in Pathology.
Captain Ayesha Rabia’s daughter Mahvesh Naveed is doing her Bachelors in Business Administration from Lahore School of Economics and son Mofeez Sheikh is studying in Grade 8 at Lahore School of Arts and Sciences.
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