There are 72,428 FAA-certified female pilots today, accounting for less than 10 percent of all pilots and just 8.5 percent of commercial pilots. It’s a male-dominated industry, no doubt, but the women represented in the skies are no shrinking violets. Just look to Teara Fraser, pilot and founder of Iskwew Air—Canada’s first Indigenous- and female-owned airline—and a winner in Travel + Leisure‘s 2025 Global Vision Awards.
“The naming of the airline was intentional,” Fraser says of her company’s title, which translates to “woman” in Cree, a language spoken by some Métis people, an Indigenous group that Fraser also belongs to. It symbolizes a reclamation of womanhood, matriarchal leadership, and language. “It was about disrupting…
