Gap

Several reputable newspapers recently reported a 53% pay gap between men and women at EasyJet. The headline does what such headlines are designed to do — reinforce the idea that the world is nasty and structurally unfair.

But here’s the question I keep wanting to ask, even if it sounds naive: does this figure simply reflect role distribution? At most airlines, higher-paid roles — pilots and certain engineering posts — are still male-dominated. Lower-paid customer-facing roles — cabin crew and ground staff — tend to have a higher proportion of women. If you average those earnings across the whole company, you will get a large overall pay gap.

That is not the same thing as saying men and women are paid differently for doing the same job.

“But women can’t be pilots or aeronautical engineers,” comes the cry. Respectfully — that’s nonsense. Commercial aviation and aerospace engineering are demanding, technical careers open to anyone who has the aptitude, qualifications and drive. The pipeline into those roles is tough for everyone.

It’s also true that career preferences differ on average. More women apply for veterinary science than commercial pilot training. That matters. Personal choice matters. Interest matters. Aptitude matters.

Meaningful equality isn’t achieved through headlines. It’s achieved when individuals pursue the qualifications required for the roles they want — and when barriers to entry are genuinely removed. If more women choose and complete engineering degrees, more will become engineers. That’s how representation changes.

None of this means discrimination never exists. It does. But collapsing complex workforce data into a single shocking percentage risks turning analysis into accusation.

Sometimes it feels less like journalism and more like strip-mining society for clickbait — reducing complicated structural realities to playground logic because outrage sells.