JOHANNESBURG: SAA will celebrate Women’s Day with an all-female crew flight to Durban.
There will be 20 of the airline’s top women Voyager Platinum Card holders on this flight. We will pamper them at the luxurious Zimbali Lodge on the North Coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal to show them how special women are.
Their day will begin with a chauffeur service transporting them from their respective homes to Johannesburg International Airport. Once at the airport, SAA’s female flyers will jet off from Johannesburg to Durban on SA535. The aircraft will be co-piloted by Kavistha Maharaj, who has been flying with SAA for 4 years 3 months. She was part of the second group to undertake SAA’s Cadet Pilot Training Programme in 1995.
Kavistha is a First Officer and operates SAA’s 737-800 on domestic and regional routes.
SAA’s female guest passengers from Cape Town and Johannesburg will be watched over by an all-female cabin crew.
At Zimbali Lodge theY will enjoy a day of ultimate pampering and relaxation with a cocktail party later on before returning to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
SAA is honouring these women and millions of other women to show that they have a special role to play alongside men, as co-partners in development and SAA’s employment equity policies.
Women are at the frontline at SAA. They make sure that SAA is a customer-focused company. Today we say “Thank You” for making SAA the airline of choice in our continent and around the world
SAA recognises the role women have played and still play to make it the airline of choice at home, within our continent and internationally. Women have assumed great responsibilities in most SAA departments.
As at March 2003, women constituted 37% of the SAA staff complement, that is 3724 out of the staff complement of about 10,000. This figure has increased to 3801 as at end of June this year. This figure represents a 1% increase over three months.
At leadership level, women representation has increased from 33% as at September 2002 to 44 % as at June this year. At senior management level, women representation has gone up by a percentage point.
Just a few years there was scant or no woman representation within the Leadership Team. Now there are four women.
At non-management level, there has been a huge increase of female employees, from 39 percent in 2002 to 58 percent by June 2003.
At the recruitment level, 59% of all vacancies were filled by females as at March this year.
As a recognition that women have been the most disadvantaged group next to the disabled, SAA launched the Women in Aviation programme. This programme serves as a tool to fast-track the development of women from non-management and junior management levels to the higher management echelons of SAA.
Through this programme SAA has embraced the challenge to bridge the gender gap with motivated, committed, competent and skilled women. The Women in Aviation programme is a fundamental step towards attracting and retaining talent in SAA.
Despite these achievements and the fact that our constitution respects gender equity, it is worth remembering too that while women`s roles are exulted on this day, most women still have little say with regard to matters which affect their lives. Few people in this country would readily admit to rampant sexual discrimination practices, yet various studies found many gender-insensitive policies and practices which in the end affect the well-being of millions of women.
——-