easyJet, Europe’s leading airline, is celebrating International Women’s Day with more female pilots flying on one day for the airline than ever before – also believed to be a European record for the most female pilots rostered by an airline in one day.

• On International Women’s Day, more easyJet passengers will be flown by female pilots than ever before
• Over 100 female easyJet pilots are rostered to fly out of 24 bases and will be at the controls of around 300 flights, carrying around 45,000 passengers to hundreds of destinations.
• Six all-female crews will operate on 16 flights
• easyJet wants to encourage more women to become pilots and has set a target for 20% of its new entrant pilots to be female by 2020.

With over 100 female pilots on today’s roster, 60% of easyJet’s female flight crew have come out in force to take part in a campaign which is using the hashtag #SheFlies to raise awareness for the airline’s Amy Johnson Flying Initiative, a campaign by the airline to encourage more women to become pilots.

Today easyJet’s female pilots will fly from 24 bases in eight countries, to hundreds of destinations across the airline’s European network.

Women will be flying almost a quarter of today’s schedule meaning around 45,000 passengers will be flown by a female pilot today and in some cases, an all-female crew. Six all-female crews – which include a female Captain, First Officer and fourfemale cabin crew – will fly between London,Bologna, Rome, Milan, Munich, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Agadir.

Last week easyJet announced a partnership with Girlguiding which includes sponsoring the new Aviation badge for Brownies. 200,000 girls aged seven to 10 will have the opportunity to complete the badge which will engage girls in aviation, build a foundation for future study and raise awareness of the opportunities to become a pilot.The partnership will also extend easyJet’s pilot careers outreach work to a community of nearly half a million girls and young women aged between five and 25.

The current proportion of female pilots affects easyJet’s gender pay gap, which the airline has published for the third year running. easyJet has done this voluntarily since 2015 and is now reporting under the new UK gender pay gap requirements.

The overall gender pay gap figure at easyJet is heavily influenced by the gender imbalance in the pilot community at easyJet and across the commercial aviation industry as whole. Like all airlines pilots make up a large proportion of easyJet’s employees, they are paid more highly than other communities and, most materially, 94% of them are male. easyJet’s pilots salaries and other pay is collectively agreed and negotiated with the trade unions, which means that the pay rates are exactly the same for men and women.