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Gender pay gaps remain high at Australia’s two major airline groups despite efforts towards greater equity, the latest data has revealed.
Released this week in the lead-up to International Women’s Day on Saturday, the data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) shows that the median pay gap at Qantas Group was 32.4 per cent in 2023–24 for total remuneration, compared to 46.2 per cent at Virgin.
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The gap highlights the continued dearth of women in higher-paid aviation roles such as pilots and engineers, with most female staff in lower-paid positions such as customer support and cabin crew.
“Each employer has a unique set of circumstances that impacts the size of their gender pay gap,” Mary Wooldridge, chief executive at WGEA, said.
“Where an employer’s gender pay gap is beyond the target range of +/-5 per cent, it indicates one gender is more likely to be over-represented in higher-paying roles compared to the other. This can be a sign of structural or cultural differences for one gender within an occupation, organisation, or broader industry.
“For employers that haven’t made progress, it’s time to ask why and dig into the data to find out what’s causing any gender differences and use evidence-based solutions to address them.”
The median pay gap at Qantas Group was down 5.9 per cent from last year and was lower at Qantas proper, 29.0 per cent, than Jetstar at 42 per cent.
According to Catherine Walsh, chief people officer at Qantas Group, while there was still work to be done, it was “pleasing” that the gap had closed slightly.
“That was driven by the continued recovery in flying that meant cabin crew, who are predominately female, had increased hours on average, leading to higher pay. Their pay was also boosted by the finalisation of new enterprise agreements,” Walsh said.
“While this is positive, these trends are not expected to continue year on year, and longer term structural changes are required to properly address the underlying drivers of the gender pay gap in aviation.
“The gender pay gap figure does not mean that women who have the same role as men are paid less. More than 80 per cent of employees across the Group are paid according to their Enterprise Agreement, which standardises pay levels regardless of gender.”
Just 7.5 per cent of Qantas Group pilots are women, while 4.3 per cent are engineers, compared to 77.6 per cent of airport support staff and 70.9 per cent of cabin crew.
“We are working to address this imbalance through a number of initiatives. In early 2025 we welcomed the first apprentices to our Engineering Academy in Brisbane, with women expected to make up a quarter of engineering apprentices starting this year,” Walsh said.
“This builds on the successful model of our Pilot Academy in Toowoomba which recently celebrated its five-year anniversary. To date, around 20 per cent of its 400 graduates have been women. This year, we have doubled the number of scholarships to 20 for female students and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to make sure we are reaching a broader and more diverse talent base.
“We are also increasing our school outreach to increase the number of young women considering a career in aviation.”
At Virgin Australia, meanwhile, the gender pay gap has increased from 2022–23, which the carrier ascribed to a higher number of customer-facing employees.
“We have a larger proportion of men occupying higher paying roles, such as pilots and aircraft engineers. Gender representation targets and supporting initiatives are in place to shift our demographic profile over time,” the airline said in its annual pay gap statement.
“Virgin Australia has experienced significant growth over recent years, which has seen our headcount increase from 3,000 up to 8,000 employees in four years.
“In the 2024 reporting period, we experienced an increase in headcount within our customer-facing teams (cabin crew and guest services) in which women are represented in higher numbers.”
Additionally, many of Virgin’s enterprise agreements (EAs) scale pay by experience and seniority, with male staff in many roles likely to have been employed for longer.
“For example, under our pilot EAs, remuneration is structured to increase with each year of seniority which sees longer serving pilots, generally men, at the higher end of the seniority scale,” the airline said.
“In line with our commitment to increase the intake of women into pilot roles, we expect our gender pay gap will start to reflect the changes we are making. However, this will take time to take effect.
“In contrast, within other areas of our workforce we see no gender pay gap, such as our Guest Services team, where many team members are new to Virgin Australia and a different progression structure exists within the EA.”
Virgin said it was looking to increase female representation in key roles, develop more opportunities for career progression, conduct regular pay reviews and promote a “culture of belonging”.
“We acknowledge that closing the gender pay gap will take time and we are committed to taking proactive steps to create a more equitable workplace for all our team members,” the airline said.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, women make up approximately 4 per cent of pilots and 3 per cent of engineers globally.
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says:From my experience, anyone, male or female, can apply for whatever job they would prefer whenever one becomes available. Clearly, the selection criteria for Flight Crew and positions in engineering are more stringent than those for other staff vacancies so maybe the variance in male/female numbers in various positions is due to a/choice b/qualifications both of which are controlled by the applicant and nothing else.