A Cockpit View of History
Emily Howell Warner, the first woman pilot to be hired permanently by a major U.S. airline, will be remembered for the trailblazing path she left behind for other women aviators.
Written by Sabrina Jones, FAA Office of Communications
Aviation pioneer Emily Howell Warner, the first woman pilot of a major American airline, passed away July 3 in Littleton, Colo. The following article was written in 2015, after she received the FAA’s prestigious Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Emily Warner dreamed of becoming a stewardess during her shifts at the Colorado May Co. department store in the late 1950s.
But the teenager’s plans changed after a friend encouraged her to book a trip on a Frontier Airlines DC-3 airliner. During her return flight, a friendly flight attendant asked her if she wanted to see the cockpit.
“In those days, they let people come into the cockpit,” Warner recalled. “I sat down on this little seat behind the pilots. When I looked out that front window, I thought, ‘Ahhh, this is it.’”
She decided to follow one of the pilots’ suggestions that she take flying lessons — a stretch for her at a cost of $12.75 an hour on her weekly salary of $38. She eventually got a job as a receptionist at the flight school. By the age of 21, Warner had earned her pilot license and had started working as a flight instructor. From there, she continued to rise through the ranks, including a stint as an FAA pilot examiner. Warner then set her sights on becoming an airline pilot.
After several years of unsuccessful attempts, Warner was eventually hired in 1973 by her proclaimed “favorite airline” — Frontier — and secured her place in history as the first permanent woman pilot hired by a scheduled U.S. passenger airline. Three years later, she became the nation’s first female airline captain.
FAA officials recognized Warner’s lengthy list of trailblazing achievements during a July 11, 2015 ceremony where she received the agency’s highest honor for pilots, the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, a recognition reserved for pilots who have flown for 50 or more years. Northwest Mountain Regional Administrator Kathryn Vernon presented the award certificate to Warner at the event held at the eponymously named Emily Warner Airfield — formerly the Granby Airport in rural Colorado.
Out of about 3,100 awards presented to pilots across the country, only about 60 have been awarded to women, Vernon said.
“That alone is very significant because the Master Pilot Award is about 50 years of safe flying — gender notwithstanding,” Vernon said. “She has over 21,000 hours of flight time . . . She broke a glass ceiling, proving women can be in command and be accepted in an historically male-dominated field.”
A group of women pilots in uniform — including fellow members of the Colorado chapter of the Ninety-Nines and the International Society of Women Airline Pilots, a mentoring and networking organization that Warner founded — were among the attendees who flanked Warner as she received her latest commendation. The day’s events, which attracted several hundred people, also featured the grand opening of the Emily Warner Field Aviation Museum in the former Rocky Mountain Airways airline terminal, and the unveiling of a sign dedicating the renamed airfield in Warner’s honor. The awardee had high praise for Vernon, the first female regional administrator for the Northwest Mountain Region.
“We’re trailblazers,” Warner said. “What a nice person she is, very classy. It was a wonderful turnout.”
Warner’s entry into aviation history was a journey that a syndicated news columnist recently compared to a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches tale. She grew up with her Irish-American parents, twin sister, and four brothers in Denver, Colo. She recounted her mother’s initial reticence when she announced her decision to take flying lessons and her father’s pride when she completed her first solo flight.
Her immutable tenacity came into play through the years as she encountered obstacles in a field where opportunities were still limited for women.
“It was like I had to prove myself all the time,” she said. She detailed the pivotal interview she had in the early 1970s, after years of applications to airlines, with Capt. Ed O’Neil, Frontier’s then-vice president of flight operations. During their talk, he asked her what she would wear for a pilot’s uniform.
“I said, ‘the pantsuits are in now,’” Warner said with a laugh. “He said, ‘I guess that will work.’ That was so funny. He said, ‘You have the job.’”
He also gave her a piece of lasting advice. “He said, ‘What you do will represent other women,’” Warner said. Following her hiring, other airlines offered jobs to women, and she met other industry pioneers, such as one of her role models, Turi Widerøe, an Oslo, Norway native who, in 1961, became Scandinavian Airline Systems’ (SAS) first female pilot. After Frontier hired Warner, Widerøe sent her congratulatory message with a bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers.
“We were so connected in aviation that we really connected [on a personal level],” Warner said.
In her early years, the reception to her presence was at times mixed. She recounted one flight she took with a male pilot captain.
“When we got ready to go flying, he said, ‘Don’t touch anything on the plane,’” Warner said. “It was a very quiet flight.”
Things shifted some after Warner flew with a senior pilot captain.
“He was very senior and respected by everybody,” she said. “He said, ‘Emily, you’re one of the fellows now.’ It took somebody to do that. We became good friends. I’m still connected with his kids.”
Warner also worked to lessen the discomfort of some flight attendants, predominantly women, who weren’t used to seeing a woman in a pilot’s uniform. She decided to visit a reception area where the women would gather before flights.
“They weren’t so sure about a woman pilot,” Warner said. “I call it ‘working a room.’ I’d get there before they did and I’d make the coffee. I was in then. No pilot had ever made coffee.”
Kathryn Vernon and Max Tidwell formerly of the Denver Flight
Standards District Office at the renamed
Emily Warner Airfield.
Over the years, she also flew for Continental Airlines — where she led the first ever, all-women flight crew — and commanded Boeing 737s for the United Parcel Service. In 1990, she returned to the FAA to work as an aviation safety inspector. She retired from the agency in 2002 as its air crew program manager for United Airlines’ Boeing 737 fleet.
“It was looking at aviation from a different perspective,” Warner said. “It was a really a great experience.”
Her various accolades through the decades include her inductions into the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983, the Women in Aviation International Pioneers Women Hall of Fame in 1992, the National Women’s Hall of Fame and Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002, and the Granby Airport Pioneers Wall of Fame and National Aviation Hall of Fame last year.
In 1994, the Colorado Senate signed a resolution to honor Warner for her achievements in aviation history and several years later, the governor of Colorado enacted an “Emily Warner Day”. She was the first woman to join the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the world’s largest airline pilot union. Her Frontier Airlines pilot’s uniform hangs in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., near the FAA’s Headquarters.
At home in Denver, Warner continues to network with other women pilots, with whom she meets once a month for what she termed an “Emily’s Power Pilot Lunch.” When talking to young women who express interest in entering the field, she encourages them to sign up for flying lessons.
“Every time I talk to young women’s groups, I encourage them to take a couple of lessons and see if they like it,” she said. “They’re either going to like it or not. If they like it, they’re going to continue on.”
She shared a ranch in Granby for years with her late husband, Julius, whom she taught to fly, and her dog Toto. She occasionally took the three-hour drive from Denver to take flights with friends.
“You don’t forget how, it’s like driving a car,” Warner said.
She reflected on her “wonderful year” before adding, “I’m glad I’m still here to enjoy it all.”
To find more information about women in aviation history, check out our Timeline of FAA and Aerospace History and other articles below. Interested in becoming a pilot? Go to https://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/ to find out how.
