Firsts in Commercial Flight: Barrier Breaking Women in the Flight Deck

This is your captain, making history. Meet the first women to fly for commercial airlines and discover their stories.

Turi Widerøe 

In 1969, Turi Widerøe became the first woman to work as a commercial airline pilot for a major airline in the Western world. Widerøe flew for Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). 

Widerøe earned her private pilot’s license in 1962 and her commercial license in 1965. In 1968, she joined SAS where she was enrolled in the company’s flight academy. After graduating, she was certified as a co-pilot on the Convair 440 Metropolitan, making history. 

Emily Howell Warner 

Emily Howell Warner was the first woman hired to permanently fly for a scheduled U.S. passenger airline.  

She took her first airplane ride in 1958 at age 17 and immediately decided on aviation as a career. She worked as a receptionist at Clinton Aviation Flying School to pay for her $13-a-week flying lessons, which took 1/3 of her paycheck. By 1960, she had a private pilot’s license and a job as a flying traffic reporter, sometimes working 14 hours a day by cramming a full-time office job in between morning and evening flights. A year later she became a certified flight instructor at Clinton Aviation Company in Denver, Colorado, and was promoted to flight-school manager and chief pilot.  

She began applying for airline jobs at Frontier, United, and Continental beginning in 1968. After she turned 30, she lost all hope of being hired, especially after watching her own former students (all men) being hired. Finally, in January 1973, Frontier hired her as a pilot.  

Warner initially flew as a first officer on Convair 580s and de Havilland Twin Otters. In 1976, she became the first woman to be a U.S. airline captain, flying a Twin Otter. Warner then became captain of a Boeing 727 for UPS.  

In 1974, she became the first woman to join the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). In 1990, she retired from UPS to become a Federal Aviation Administration examiner. 

Bonnie Tiburzi

Bonnie Tiburzi, hired a few months after Emily Howell Warner, became the first American woman to fly for a major United States airline when she was joined American Airlines in 1973. She was only 24 at the time. 

Tiburzi’s first job was as a flight instructor and charter pilot, until she joined American Airlines in 1973. She was likely inspired by her father, who was a commercial pilot with SAS and TWA, and later owned his own charter company and flight school, Tiburzi Airways. 

Tiburzi retired from aviation in the late 1990s after 26 years.

Melissa “M’Lis” Ward  

M’Lis Ward, a captain for United Airlines, is the first African American woman captain in commercial passenger aviation.  

Ward was inspired by her mother, who was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Chicago medical school, remarking “When you see a mom can accomplish something like that, you think you can do anything.” 

Ward joined the Air Force ROTC in college, and went on to join the Air Force after graduation where she was an instructor pilot for C141.  

In November 1992, she joined United Airlines in Chicago where she was a second officer on DC-10s. She then rose through the ranks to become captain.  

This content was migrated from an earlier online exhibit, Women in Aviation and Space History, which shared the stories of the women featured in the Museum in the early 2000s.