In 2018 four IFATCA women met in Milano, Italy. Giusy Sciacca, Maria Serrano, Nicola Ni Riada and Helena Sjöström Falk. They were the Founding Mothers of IFATCA’s EDITF.

They shared a common concern, women were clearly underrepresented, not only within IFATCA, but within the air traffic control profession in general. At a time when the global aviation industry was already facing staffing shortages, they asked a simple but powerful question,

Why aren’t there more women in air traffic control, and what can we do about it?

That question became the foundation of a working paper presented at the IFATCA Annual Conference in Conchal, Costa Rica in 2019. Grounded in empirical evidence and best practices from both aviation and the wider business world, the paper demonstrated how organizations benefit from diversity, not only internally, but also in how they collaborate with others. It challenged IFATCA to look critically at itself and ask whether it truly reflected the global profession it represented.

The message resonated.

With the full support of the IFATCA Directors, the Equality, Diversity and Ethics Task Force, EDETF, was officially created.

The members of IFATCA’s  EDETF were appointed by the IFATCA Executive Board, and consisted of 10 people. One woman and one man from each of the four IFATCA regions, together with the Secretary, Maria Serrano  and the chair Sverre Ivar Elsbak. The EDETF was given 5 specific tasks:

  1. Review the IFATCA Code of Conduct and re-write it for the IFATCA Executive Board.
  2. Write the IFATCA Equality and Diversity Plan, to be ratified by the Member Associations at the IFATCA Annual meeting in Singapore in 2020
  3. Research the ratio between male and female ATCOs, diversity among ATCOs and in management in the four IFATCA regions.
  4. Gather knowledge and information in order to assist Member Associations  in the future work for equality and diversity in the four IFATCA regions.
  5. Collaborate with other international organizations and bodies on the subject of equality and diversity.

 

The EDETF quickly produced the IFATCA Code of Conduct, which is still being used for all IFATCA meetings, world wide. It is a guide for our members concerning what kind of behavior is expected from them. It is also a reminder of what behavior is not tolerated, and the consequences there will be if someone is in violation of the Code of Conduct.

The EDETF also performed a world wide survey to get some hard numbers on how many female Air Traffic Controllers currently were in the profession. That was a BIG job. Trying to get the right contact information to more than 130 member associations, and then trying to get them to find the numbers to us was a lot of work, but the effort paid off. For the first time, IFATCA had hard data on female representation in the profession. Since then, all member associations report their number of female air traffic controllers into the IFATCA Information Handbook.

Then, in 2020, the world stopped. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IFATCA Annual Conference in Singapore was cancelled. All the working papers from the EDETF were put on hold. In 2021 the IFATCA Executive Board, in collaboration with the Chair of the task force, officially changed the name to Equity Diversity and Inclusion Task Force (EDITF).

The change was more than cosmetic. It reflected a deeper understanding: equality means giving everyone the same opportunity, while equity means recognizing that different people, and different Member Associations, may need different support to achieve that opportunity.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world became even more digitalized. The EDITF reached out to our sister organization IFALPA and started a collaboration to celebrate International Women’s Day online. Since 2021 it has become an annual collaboration, now also involving IFATSEA, IFISA and IFAMIA.

At the 2023 IFATCA Annual Conference in Jamaica, the new IFATCA Equity Diversity and Inclusion Plan was adopted by the Directors.

Built around five key commitments, the plan commits IFATCA to:

  • Creating a safe and inclusive culture where all Member Associations can thrive
  • Recognizing that diversity strengthens safety, professionalism, and operational excellence
  • Promoting equity over equality, acknowledging that different Member Associations may need different support to achieve the same opportunities.
  • Supporting Member Associations with guidance, resources, and best practices, while encouraging diverse representation at every level without lowering standards.
  • The plan is backed by strong leadership, dedicated resources and annual review, ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion remain an active and evolving part of IFATCA’s future.

 

It’s been a focus for the Task Force since the start, that EDI in IFATCA is trying to change the culture in a positive manner. Changing the culture of any organization takes time. Changing the culture of an international organization takes even longer. This is a marathon, NOT a sprint. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion can’t be forced upon people or organizations. If it is, we will often see a back lash, like we see some places around the world today. In IFATCA we gently, but firmly tell our Member Association’s what we believe in and why.

Has the IFATCA EDITF made progress since the start? IFATCA is not an organization driven by key performance indicators, but the evidence of progress is clear. Female representation on the IFATCA Executive Board has grown significantly, alongside increased participation of women in volunteer and leadership roles across the Federation. This is especially visible within key bodies such as the IFATCA Technical and Operations Committee and the IFATCA Professional and Legal Committee, both now led by women. Perhaps most notably, IFATCA now has its first female President, Helena Sjöström Falk, something that would have been hard to imagine only a few years ago.

EDITF now has a time slot in all the major IFATCA meetings, both in all the four regional IFATCA meetings and at the Annual meeting The members of the task force are continuing to educate the Member Associations on EDI. In other organizations they have women’s groups who work with gender equality and DEI, but in IFATCA we have made EDI everybody’s concern. EDI has a seat at the table.  EDI has a voice at all the IFATCA meetings, and you can be sure that the EDITF uses that voice. For the last three years the EDITF has had an annual budget supported by the EB.

The EDITF began with a strong focus on gender equality within IFATCA. At the time, many of us believed this would be the “low hanging fruit”, an area where we expected broad support and relatively little resistance. In many ways, that proved true. The feedback in meetings, conferences, and formal discussions was consistently positive and encouraging.

What surprised us, however, was hearing a different narrative in the informal conversations, what some might call “the conversations at the bar.” There was a perception in some circles that the EDITF represented only women’s rights, or only LGBTQ+ issues, rather than the wider interests of the Federation.

That became an important learning moment for us. It reinforced the need to communicate our purpose even more clearly. From the very beginning, the mission of the EDITF has never been to advocate for a select few, we are here for ALL our members.

We’ve been doing this for 6-7 years now, and we’ve just started our marathon. Overall we hope and think that DEI in IFATCA should help improve all of our members day – to – day living. In order to do so, we are now looking into shifting the focus a bit. We want to help our members with their problems, in their regions and within their Member Associations. So going forward IFATCA will have a more regional focus on DEI, and try to help our members where it is needed. We will continue our work on a global basis too, that will never change.

EDITF is not here to force change. We are here to start conversations, inspire self-reflection, and steadily advocate, one conversation at a time, for a Federation where every member feels safe, seen, valued, and included. To wrap things up in one slogan going forward: We are raising awareness through education!