A Woman Pilot
By Sarah Elzas

Devon Dunning is a pilot for Continental Express, a regional subsidiary of Continental Airlines. She flies small, 46-passenger ATR-42 airplanes in and out of Newark, NJ, four days a week.

Given the recent attacks in New York and Washington, DC, Dunning’s job may seem terrifying. But, she seems to trust the new safety regulations.

“I look at it from a pretty logical point of view,” she says. “I do believe that the security has been improved.”

She will comply and trust any new Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) regulations, although she draws the line at pilots carrying guns.

“It seems like it may cause even more problems,” she says. She is more worried about the industry, in particular, how smaller airlines will fare with drops in airline use.

That Dunning is thinking in economic terms is not surprising, as she never intended to become a pilot at all, but rather, go into business. Dunning holds a BA in finance from SUNY-Albany, and she started an internship at an investment company when she moved to Manhattan after graduation. However, things did not go as planned.

“About two months later, I was miserable,” she says of starting her new job. She enjoyed neither the work nor the hours, and at 21 years old, she had to reevaluate what she wanted to do. While on an airplane going to visit a friend, she realized that she really enjoyed flying. Why not make it a career?

Dunning grew up with a father who flew a Skyhawk–a small, four-person airplane.She never thought about becoming a professional pilot, even while she was taking flying lessons during her summers in college. She recalls flying with her father at night as a young girl.

I would always be baffled at how he could find his way home at night, she said.

Now, of course, after nearly three years of training and over 1,500 hours flying, she knows exactly how. In order to log the more than 1,500 hours of flying, Dunning, like many of her peers, received an instructor rating, which allowed her to teach flying, and thus pay for her flying hours as well. She joined Continental Express in January 2001 as a trainee, and in March she received her commercial rating.

“You have to go through the natural steps,” she explains of the path towards becoming a pilot for a major airline, which she says is what she eventually wants to be doing. “I had a five-year plan that just turned into a seven-year plan,” she explains.

When the economy is good and people are taking airplane trips, the industry tends to move pilots up the ranks quickly–in two or three years. However, these days, with confidence in the airlines waning, Dunning wonders how long it will take for her.

At 25 years old, Dunning may seem like a young pilot, but she says this is not unusual. “I have been running into many people my age,” she says. As for being a woman in an industry that has, according to Dunning, 10 to 12 percent women, she has not felt it make a difference. “Everyone throughout my training has been professional,” Dunning says.

She says, that it is her coworkers that makes the job worthwhile, and, of course, the landings. “It’s the most thrilling part of the ride,” she says. What is the worst part of the job? There isn’t really one. When pressed, she says,“My biggest headache is when I am done with the trip and I have to drive home.”#

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