The World’s Youngest Airline Captain Is A 26 Year Old Woman

Congratulations Kate McWilliams... She may be youngest captain in the world now but In January 1990 Nivedita Bhasin became the world's youngest commander at the age of 26 on the Boeing aircraft. Search wiki for Nivedita Bhasin I believe there are other even younger women captains, may not be on a jet. Stats and PR it is still a great achievement for a male dominated profession and women should be encouraged to become pilots.

Folks that are younger than these, male and female, have been flying aircraft, driving ships, launching missiles, diving submarines, operating every manner of complicated machinery for many decades. So the feats reported above are really not that a big of a deal. But this is a blog for airline travel, so I'll give applause. Clap clap clap....

@DougG I agree that they should at least be 21 before working at the airline as a pilot. Maybe even a bit older. There is no question they can learn the how-to and be effective at 19, but in terms of leading people and that type of responsibility its just a bit much. Seriously what is the rush. I have a feeling if we look at their salaries they will be getting paid way less than their more experienced colleagues at other airlines who are older.

So I could have a 26 year old captain or I could have a captain with 26 years flight experience. Hmm . I'll take the flight experience thank you. Also, I'm not really cool with a 19 y/o flying a commercial passenger jet. Can they fly a plane? Sure. When picking a captain though your not picking who can take off and land and routine stuff. The first officers can all do that. With a captain you want a person there who can handle it when something that is not routine happens. Someone with a lot of experience who in that moment will make decisions that will impact the lives of everyone on that airplane. Sorry. Just don't see how people this young could possibly have enough experience to make those types of calls. Not saying they won't get there, but I just don't see it.

@Abhinav Agarwal In case you didn't know and it sounds like you don't, women have to put up with a lot more misogynistic bs to get to equal footing in this world. Thats why some are "required" to dress a certain way, weight has to be within a range, how some countries have jobs for men but the women are not allowed to do the same work etc. @Aaron Tan thats a fair question and I certainly thought about it. But she is not necessarily a captain flying a difficult route under difficult flying conditions into airports that would make your teeth gnash together. She would be perfectly fine as a primary care doctor but maybe not neuro surgeon because of lack of experience. Pilots unlike doctors can make minor mistakes while flying and most likely won't kill everyone on board. While a surgeon making a small mistake during surgery could very well be disaster. So I wouldn't put pilots on equal level of concern as a surgeon. Obviously, amount of experience is important but I wouldn't discredit someone because of age. I was in the emergency room and had an unknown issue at the time. The older more experienced doctor said I was fine and to go home and monitor my condition. The much younger doctor was more concern because of my past history and wanted me monitored in the hospital and was mostly speaking from instincts. He was right, the older doctor was wrong and I could have died that night.