(CNN) — Delta flies from Salt Lake City to Houston every day, but one recent trip was a little different, packed with girls getting a behind-the-scenes lesson about aviation.
Delta celebrated International Girls in Aviation Day by carrying 120 girls from Salt Lake City to Houston for a tour of NASA.
Courtesy Delta
The girls, who came from area STEM schools (Science Technology Engineering Math), got to see women run all aspects of their flight, Delta said. The plane had an all-female pilot and flight crew, ramp agents and gate agents on the ground, and women in the control tower giving pilots instructions.
The students toured NASA’s Mission Control and ate lunch with astronaut and aerospace engineer Jeanette Epps.
“We know representation matters. At Delta, we believe you have to see it to be it,” said Beth Poole, general manager of pilot development, who started the program in 2015. “We’re taking ownership to improve gender diversity by exposing girls at a young age and providing a pipeline so that 10 years from now, they will be the pilots in the Delta cockpit inspiring generations of women who follow.”
Delta says that 5% of its pilots are women and that 7.4% hired over the last four years are women.