Women in US airlines: gender equality still lags significantly

United Airlines recently joined numerous corporations headquartered in Chicago that had pledged to increase gender equality in leadership roles by 2030.

That promise follows Delta's recognition in 2018 as one of the US' best work places for women, after the airline achieved 100% pay parity for men and women.

Those are positive developments for a country and industry that still have much runway ahead in their consistency of promoting women into the upper echelons of the executive ranks. At most of the large US airlines, women are still greatly under-represented in top management positions and it still seems that it will take decades before a female rises to the ranks of CEO at any of the largest US airlines.

There has also arguably been little movement on improving the work-life balance for women in the workforce in order for females to rise through the ranks. Unfortunately, there is still too little attention paid to the number of women that opt to exit the workforce altogether after being forced to choose between family and a career.