Today we’d like to introduce you to Shakar Soltani.
Shakar, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
For as long as I can remember, I have always been enamored with aviation. As a child, my parents would take me to watch planes land near Lovefield Airport at Bachman lake. I still recall the amazement I felt as the enormous aircraft flew over me. Years later, I became a marketing intern with the same company whose planes I grew up watching land-Southwest Airlines.
After my internship, I became a flight attendant with Spirit Airlines and have loved every single second of it. My job isn’t as glamorous as my friends think. I’ve experienced my share of delays, reroutes and irregular operations, but even through it all, I have still managed to fall in love with the aviation industry.
Though I’ve always had a fascination with the airlines, it never occurred to me that I could be a pilot, until I met Captain Natalie Berman and First Officer Chelsea Abingdon, two of the 68 women pilots at Spirit Airlines. They invited me to the Women in Aviation Conference in Long Beach, CA and immediately after I signed up for my first introductory flight lesson. From that moment on, I knew that I would work very hard to make flying my career.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has never been easy and I don’t expect it to get any easier. There’s always a hurdle to overcome, whether it’s time, money or external pressures. Flight training is very expensive, and it took me a while to finally start because I didn’t have the money, nor anyone to co-sign for me for a loan. Months later, I got a call that changed my life. I won the NGPA Private Pilot Training Scholarship and have been using that to pay for my training so far.
Working a full-time job as a Flight Attendant requires me to be gone from home a lot therefore making it hard to schedule flight lessons. I started bidding red eye turn lines (a turn means I go to a city then come right back) in order to be back home every day. As a flight attendant, my schedule varies month by month. Typically I have about 12-14 days off a month so I schedule my flight lessons around that if I am unable to hold a turn line.
Flying is fun, but it also requires a ton of self-motivation and study. Like most students, I struggled a lot with landing, but like any other skill it can be achieved with practice and repetition.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Spirit Airlines – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
Although I’ve always had a fascination with the airlines, I think the lack of representation of women in aviation in my youth damaged my ability to seek out a career in the industry during my formative years. I had never met a pilot before becoming a Flight Attendant, yet alone a female one. Representation matters and I think it’s important for our society as a whole to embrace diversity. Currently, women make up only 7% of all certificated pilots and 5% of airline pilots. The number is slowly increasing and with the aviation industry experiencing a shortage of pilots (the aviation industry will require 679,000 pilots in 2035), I think it’s important that airlines be more inclusive.
I am a member of multiple aviation organizations such as the Latino Pilots Association (LPA), the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP), the National Gay Pilot Association (NGPA) and Women in Aviation International (WAI) and the 99’s, an organization for Woman pilots. I’m proud to be a part of these organizations because we all share one common goal; to cultivate pride and visibility for underrepresented groups in the aviation industry.
These organizations have been a paramount to my success and I am grateful for the volunteer opportunities they have allowed me to participate in. Since August 2019, I have attended eight career days, four aviation expos and three conferences. It humbles me because I want to be the person I needed in my youth to others. There’s so many amazing careers out there that we just don’t know or think about. Through education and outreach, I hope to inspire others to consider the possibility of a career in aviation.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Well, my dream is to be an airline pilot and the next step in me accomplishing that goal is to get my instrument rating, which would allow me to fly under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in all kinds of weather. Then I’ll get my commercial license which legally allows me to be paid and my multi-engine rating which would allow me to fly an aircraft with more than one engine. I’ll have to gain experience and build hours before I can apply to the airlines. Some ways to build hours include banner towing, flying skydivers, flying aerial photographers or instructing, which would require a CFI (certified flight instructor) rating. Aside from getting the necessary ratings to become an airline pilot, a seaplane rating and aerobatic flying is totally on my bucket list just for fun!
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