Trailblazing airline pilot Linda Pauwels was born Linda Pfeiffer in San Pedro, a city in Argentina’s Province of Buenos Aires, in 1963. She was the daughter of Mabel Gaspard Pfeiffer, a native Argentinian who worked as a schoolteacher; and Jerzy “Jorge” Pfeiffer, a Polish-born naturalized Argentine citizen.
Pauwels was only six years old when her father died at the age of 39. The now-widowed Mabel Gaspard Pfeiffer, struggling to survive financially, ended up relocating from Argentina to Miami, Florida, with both her daughter and two-year-old son Walter in hopes of earning better pay and an improved quality of life. After being unable to obtain employment as a teacher and instead having to work two jobs to help make ends meet, Mabel reluctantly sent both of her children back to Argentina to live with relatives there while she improved her financial prospects in the United States for all of them.
After returning to Argentina, Pauwels lived with her maternal grandparents Francesca Rodriguez and Carlos Gaspard. As huge champions of education, Pauwels’ grandparents inspired her to excel in her studies. She was a high-achieving student who achieved proficiency in not only have native language of Spanish but also English and French.
Pauwels initially aspired to pursue a medical career. Her professional goals changed, however, after a visit to Miami when she was 16. By this time, her mother was employed as an agent with traffic and operations for Transportes AerosCentro Americanos (TACA) Airlines at Miami International Airport (MIA).
Pauwels took a strong liking to that airport’s overall environment and soon resolved to pursue an aviation-oriented career. Her first major step in that direction occurred, when she secured a summer job with the privately owned Canadian airline Wardair Canada. This job allowed Pauwels to use her French language skills to routinely hand-deliver flight plans from a teletype to pilots awaiting that information on their aircraft.
Pauwels persisted in carving out a career for herself in aviation despite the numerous hurdles that females faced in that profession at the time. When she was still 16, Pauwels first flew solo. She earned her private pilot’s license by the time she turned 17. She also found true love as the result of her enthusiasm for flying planes; in 1981, she married flight instructor and pilot Frederick Pauwels. During their honeymoon, they transported a small plane from Florida to Chile.
Another milestone for Linda Pauwels took place in 1985, when she graduated from Miami Dade College with an associate in science degree certifying her as a professional pilot and flight engineer at Miami Dade College. She was subsequently hired by Southern Air Transport (SAT), becoming this cargo carrier’s first female pilot. Over the next three years, Pauwels’ piloting assignments on behalf of SAT involved flights to Africa, Europe, and South America. She remarked, “All of a sudden, you find yourself flying over the Tower of Pisa and you can’t believe it.”
Pauwels was eventually promoted by SAT to serve as the captain for a Boeing 707 cargo jet. This made her the first woman in the world to be in charge of this jet for commercial air service. Pauwels’ favorite assignments in this capacity included helping out with United Nations humanitarian missions by transporting urgently needed supplies to disaster-ravaged areas across the globe.
In 1988, Pauwels found new employment opportunities at American Airlines. She became a a flight engineer for Boeing 727s. Her responsibilities in this regard involved monitoring the engines, fluid levels, and mechanical systems for these jet airliners. Pauwels also became American Airlines’ first female check airman. For this position, she handled the training and evaluations for the airline’s probationary flight engineers based at MIA. (Her brother, incidentally, also became a pilot for American Airlines; their mother continued to work at MIA well into her eighties.)
As her career at American Airlines steadily progressed from one key accomplishment to another, Pauwels was promoted to first officer – a role that encompasses managing navigation and carrying out pre-flight checks. By 2000, she had become the first Latina captain for American Airlines. The first aircraft that she piloted in this position was a McDonnell Douglas MD-80. She went on to also serve a captain for Airbus A-320 and Boeing B-787 Dreamliners.
Pauwels considerable aviation achievements have resulted in her being included in the lists of the 100 most influential Latinas in both Hispanic Business Magazine and Hispanic Magazine. Loretta Sanchez, who served in the US. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2017, entered a tribute to Pauwels in the Congressional Record in 2002. “Linda is a dedicated wife and mother of two,” stated this tribute. “She is also the only woman spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, and dedicates much of her time to promoting woment in aviation and encouraging Hispanics to work hard to fulfill their dreams.”
In her advice to young people interested in pursuing aviation as a career, Pauwels has stressed the ongoing need for perseverance. “If you see yourself doing this, don’t talk yourself out of it,” she once asserted. “Don’t give in to the ‘buts’ . . . Don’t limit yourself. Look at the possibilities out there.”
Photo Credit: Stephen Gould (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
For more information on Linda Pauwels, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Pauwels
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