November 2018 www.womanthismonth.com 36 FEATURE | women in aviation A fourth panelist is still to be announced. Panelist Captain Maisa Mohamed Hazeen Chief of Aviation Safety Rules and Regulations at Bahrain Civil Aviation Authority and former Gulf Air first officer. Read more about her later in this feature. Panelist Martyna Al-Qassab Founder and managing director of Yalla Banat, The women’s motoring and development event which recently took place at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). Since obtaining her MSc in sports management in her native Poland, Martyna has worked for more than 10 years in the sport industry fulfilling her passion to help individuals develop their potential by building communities and organisations with the right structure to enable people to excel and strive to be the best that they can be. In 1999 Martyna obtained her gliding licence at the Aero Club, Czestochowa, and became an avid member of the flight community in gliders and single-engine aeroplanes with a passion for the open skies. In 2002 she was the first female to be accepted by the Polish Air Force University, Deblin, to further pursue her aeronautical ambitions. In the following years Martyna’s focus was on competing at international level as part of the Global Taekwon-Do Federation. She won the title at the World Cup Championship in the Semi and Light contact category from 1999 to 2004. Moving to Bahrain as part of BIC’s start-up team to the launch the state-of-the-art karting circuit, Martyna’s passion for all things competitive remained and recently led her to get behind the wheel in the circuit’s 2000cc Challenge achieving a podium finish in the 2017 championship – the only female driver in the last 10 years to have done so. Martyna lives in Bahrain with her husband Ramzi and their two young sons, Talal and Essa and has recently founded the Yalla Banat initiative built as a platform to celebrate women from across the region and inspire the next generation of innovators and achievers to transform their dreams into reality. ARAB WOMEN IN AVIATION A brief timeline of some significant achievements. 1939 Lotfia Elnadi becomes the first Arab woman, first African woman and first woman in Egypt to earn a pilot's licence. 1940 Effat Tejaratchi becomes the first Iranian woman to earn her pilot's licence. 1951 Touria Chaoui is the first woman from Morocco to earn her pilot's licence. Myriam Ben is the first Algerian woman to earn a pilot's licence. 1984 Khatool Mohammadzai is the first Afghan woman to become a paratrooper. 1989 Latifa Nabizada and her sister, Laliuma, become the first Afghan women admitted to military flight school. 2005 Hanadi Zakaria Al-Hindi becomes the first woman in Saudi Arabia to earn her pilot's licence. (It was 2014 before she was allowed to fly in Saudi airspace!) 2007 Maisa Hazeem gains her wings as Gulf Air’s first woman pilot. 2011 Salma Al Baloushi is the first Emirati woman pilot to complete an Etihad Airways flight. 2014 Mariam al-Mansuri is the UAE’s first female fighter pilot, flying F-16 Fighting Falcons in combat against ISIS in Syria. Kuwait Airways employs Munira Mohammad Bu'erki as a pilot and trainee captain. Gulf Air’s first female Bahraini captain, Yasmeen Fraidoon, takes to the skies. 2015 Myriam Adnani becomes the first Muslim woman pilot in Europe. 2018 Sheikha Aisha bint Rashid Al Khalifa becomes the first Bahraini woman to qualify as a fighter pilot.
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