ABU DHABI: Etihad Airways celebrated yesterday as the company's first woman captain took to the skies. Sophie Blanchard, 33, from Lyon, France, took off in her Airbus A330-300 with 225 passengers and crew from Abu Dhabi International Airport at 1.30pm at the controls of Flight EY17, bound for London's Heathrow.
She landed at 6.04pm local time, UAE media reports said.
Achieving her uniform's fourth stripe was the conclusion of 15 years of training and hard work for the married mother-of-two.
She joined Etihad in 2007 as a First Officer, after initially flying for Etihad Crystal Cargo while working for Air Atlanta.
"It is a great privilege to become Etihad's first female captain and be the first woman to take full command of a commercial flight," she said before the seven-and-a-half-hour trip.
"The company has been very supportive in my aim to become a captain and I look forward to my first flight to London."
Blanchard started her aviation training when she was 17, after finishing high school. She travelled to Florida in the US to train for her commercial licence before moving back to Europe to take up her first job.
Etihad currently has 10 female pilots within its ranks and four female cadet pilots.
"We congratulate Sophie on becoming Etihad's first female captain," said Captain Richard Hill, Etihad Airways' chief operations officer.
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