Majority of travellers don't trust female pilots

A new survey has revealed that most travellers don't trust female airline pilots.

Around 51 percent of those questioned by British online travel agent sunshine.co.uk said they were less likely to trust a female pilot, while just 14 percent said they would feel safer with a woman at the control of an aircraft, the Age reported.

A quarter said the sex of their pilot did not matter. Nine percent said they were "unsure".

Of those who said they would rather have a male pilot, 32 percent said they believed "male pilots are more skilled", while 28 percent questioned the ability of female pilots to handle pressure.

The lack of existing female pilots meant a fear of the unknown was also cited by one in ten of those questioned.

According to Cockpit Confidential, a book about air travel by Patrick Smith, a US pilot, just five percent of cockpit crew are female - up from three percent in the mid-Nineties.

Of those who said they'd prefer to see a woman at the helm, 44 percent claimed men to be "too hot-headed in a crisis", while a quarter said men might be "too easily distracted".