Egyptian women celebrated this year’s International Women’s Day with a new achievement adding to their record of bravery and overcoming challenges. Emirates Airlines announced on Tuesday that it was having Egyptian captain Nevine Darwish fly the world’s biggest commercial airplane, the A380, as the first female ever.
On its official Facebook page, Emirates Airlines posted a short video of Darwish launching the first female-flown flight of the aeroplane, with the assistance of Emirati captain Aliaa El-Mohery.
The video featured a brief of Darwish’s flight, including boarding and landing, while controlling the cockpit. “It’s an honour to be the captain of an A380 flight,” Darwish was recorded as saying in the video.
“I want to tell every woman who dreams of being a pilot that this job does not require any physical effort, and all it takes is studying and training,” Darwish added.
International Women’s Day originally started in 1908 as a political event, when around 15,000 women protested across New York City, demanding their right to vote, better pay, and shorter work hours.
The day was only recognised by the UN in 1975, but ever since, the UN has created a theme each year for the celebration. The theme changes every year, based upon the most prominent challenges women face in that period of time.
These have ranged from “Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future” in 1996, to this year’s theme “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”, in which the UN adopted an initiative to focus on addressing poverty, hunger, disease, and gender equality.
