This is great. Wish that I could have been on the flight.
I was on the American Airlines flight on a 727 from Wichita to Chicago in about 1986 or so that was the first airline flight in the world to have an all-woman flight crew. Was just a routine flight - I only learned that it was a glass-ceiling breaking event as the flight was taxiing in at ORD and the lead flight attendant made an announcement. The passengers all applauded vigorously.
A month or two later the cover photo on the 99’s magazine was of the flight crew standing in front of the jet at the gate at O’Hare.
Having been in professional aviation for over 10 years by then, I’d certainly seen some of the incredible hassles faced by women and minorities trying to get into aviation at all or get hired to fly professionally. I’d seen too many male instructors refuse to fly with women or try to hustle them into bed rather than behave professionally and listened to far too many Part 135 chief pilots say that they wouldn’t hire women or blacks. It was just plain ugly. That flight from Wichita to Chicago that morning was a little ray of sunshine.