Delta passenger shares ‘inspiring’ photo of mother and daughter pilot duo

Pilots praised for raising awareness of women in aviation

Photo taken by John R. Watret (Twitter/@ERAUWatret)

A mother and daughter pilot duo has taken Twitter by storm after a photograph of the pair was shared online last week.

On Saturday 16 March, John R Watret, chancellor of the Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide Campus (ERAU), boarded a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta.

As Mr Watret took his seat on the flight, he overheard a child who’d requested to visit the flight deck and had met the plane’s pilot and co-pilot, who turned out to be a mother and daughter.

After asking whether he could visit the flight deck as well, Mr Watret made the acquaintance of captain Wendy Rexon and first officer Kelly Rexon.

Mr Watret later shared a picture of the pair on Twitter, which received a hugely positive response.

The tweet has garnered more than 40,000 likes and more than 16,000 retweets, with many praising Mr Watret and the pilots for raising awareness of women in aviation.

“I would probably burst with pride if I was this mum,” one person tweeted.

“It’s still so rare to have women pilots. A legacy crew like this in the cockpit? Is amazing,” another added.

In Mr Watret’s initial tweet, he said the Rexons were “inspiring for you women”.

He later clarified this had been a typo, as he said he’d meant to write “inspiring for young women”.

Kelly Rexon’s sister is also a pilot, Mr Watret revealed in an article published on the ERAU website.

Only four per cent of airline pilots in the UK and the US are women, the Centre for Aviation states.

While promoting her new film Captain Marvel earlier this month, actor Brie Larson said she hoped her portrayal of US Air Force pilot Carol Danvers will inspire more women to enter the profession.

“I really do hope that it inspires girls and women – that if that’s the path that they want to take, that they know that it’s available to them,” Larson said.