Career Podcast Featuring Susanne Pries, a Top Female International Airline Captain & Line Check Pilot.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly a large passenger Boeing 777? Or have the responsibility of safely getting a plane full of passengers to their destination? Ever wonder what it's like to travel globally for work and do something many told you wasn't possible? If so, tune in to episode #77 of the 2B Bolder Podcast for a fascinating story of a woman who followed her dream of flying despite numerous setbacks.

Susanne Pries is quite inspirational. She is a successful woman who, throughout her career, never allowed others to stop her from achieving her dream of flying planes. Susanne is an airline captain & line check pilot, training new pilots and new captains and checking out current pilots regularly to ensure standards and safety are upheld. Her International Aviation Experience includes flying the Boeing 777/757/767 and other large aircraft such as Airbus 320/319, Boeing 737, Embraer 135/145, Dornier 328, and Fokker 28. She has a B.S. in Aviation.

Susanne grew up in the Bavarian Alps. She has always had an innate appetite for adventure and exploration. When she's not flying, she loves to travel, spend time with her two kids in college, loves to cycle, and enjoys thermal springs worldwide and lagoons in Iceland.

To learn about becoming a pilot check out the Federal Aviation Administration

The 2B Bolder Podcast provides first-hand access to some amazing women. Guests will include women from leading enterprise companies to startups, women execs, coders, account execs, engineers, doctors, and innovators.

Learn more about AnitaB.org 

Transcript

Episode 77 - Susanne Pries

Sat, Mar 11, 2023 2:30PM • 37:21

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

fly, pilot, airplanes, women, flight, career, airlines, bolder, airline, africa, dream, cargo, people, passengers, hire, hard, path, plane, hours, pay

SPEAKERS

Susanne Pries, Mary Killelea

Mary Killelea  00:01

Hi there, my name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the 2B Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. 2B Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you; Encouraging you guys to show up, but to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. 

Mary Killelea  00:31

Hi there. Today's guest is so inspirational to me. She is a successful woman who throughout her career, never allowed others to stop her from achieving her dream of flying planes. Today's guest is Susanne Pries. Susanne is a airline captain and Line Check pilot, training new pilots and new captains and checking out current pilots regularly to ensure standards and safety is upheld. Susanne grew up in the Bavarian Alps and has an innate appetite for adventure and exploration. When she's not flying, she loves to travel, obviously; spending time with her two kids in college, cycling, and enjoying thermal springs and lagoons in Iceland, which sounds magical to me. Susanne, thank you so much for being here.

Susanne Pries  01:19

Mary, thank you so much for having me. It's a great honor to be here.

Mary Killelea  01:22

Oh my gosh, okay, I've never I've interviewed a lot of women, and they've had all very diverse careers. But I've never had a pilot on! How did you fall in love with becoming a pilot or wanting to fly?

Susanne Pries  01:34

I first fell in love with wanting to fly myself, I always liked to get on an airplane actually, it never bothered me. But when I was about in first grade, I for my first communion, my parents gave me a special gift, which was a tour in a Cessna from Munich over the Alps, it was a beautiful day. And I sat in that little Cessna in my white dress with my big candle. Remember that. And I'm like, and when we circled our house and toured over Munich, I'm like, wow, this is so magical. I love this. But you know, it was still just loving the fact of being on a plane so close to everything. It didn't dawn on me yet that's maybe something I could be doing later in life. But when it really became a dream of mine was when I was 10. My dad always sent us on these big vacations because he was out of the country a lot in the winter. So he said when I was 10 in 1973, you Mom take the girls to Africa, which was a big deal back then. People didn't just traveled to Africa in the early 70s for Easter break. So we did. And I got on this plane in Munich. And 10 hours later, I was in a different world, I thought I was in a different planet. Because it was just- it smelled different, the air was different. Everyone obviously, was dressed very differently. And I was like, wow, I want to do this, I want to get in this metal tube, go there, go somewhere for 10 hours and be in a very strange place. I love being a stranger in a foreign or sometimes even strange place. And that's when I said that's what I want to do. And that was pretty much it.

Mary Killelea  03:22

And that is so awesome. And the way you describe it, it really is magical. So before we got together, you sent over your bio and some of your journey and I found it so fascinating. Can you tell the listeners, kind of, your background because it's so unique? And kind of walk us through your career journey and how you got to where you are today.

Susanne Pries  03:44

Of course, it's quite a long journey. So I'll try to keep it somewhat short. So after, you know, that magical trip to Africa, and I wanted to obviously finish school, and I wanted to go finish the college prep school because I always knew education would be the ticket to a lot of things. I was the first in my family to go to college and go to college prep school, but I really wanted to finish. So I got my degree and that's when I decided okay, now I want to fly airplanes. What, how do I do this? And the way you have to go about back then in Europe. It's a very different program as it is here. Here you kind of learn how to fly and then hopefully get on with the airlines. In Germany, there's no general aviation to speak of. So you go through a program what's called Abinitio. You hopefully get hired by the National Airline which is Lufthansa there and back then that was pretty much it. And then they take you from scratch and take you through their program and then you can fly for them. We are starting to see similar programs now in the US but that was the only way to become a pilot in Europe at the time. 

Susanne Pries  04:54

However, Lufthansa wouldn't hire me because I am not only too short. *chuckles* The older airplanes were not as user friendly as the newer ones are. But I was also wearing glasses. And that was a disqualifier. And on my end, that was very crushing to me, because my dream had just gone poof, like, now what do I do? And I didn't know of any other avenues at the time. So I decided, okay, this is what I could do. My grades were good enough, I decided I could go become a Flying Doctor, perhaps in Africa, because I love Africa. And med school wasn't out of reach for me. And so I tried to pursue that on an accelerated path. However, when I did start med school, I learned that not only would it be six years of med school, it would be two more years of Tropical Medicine, and then have to get my pilot's license, and then maybe fly. You know, the doctor in the pilot were one person at the time and Africa. And this 10 year path just didn't seem the right thing for me. I-I didn't have patience to wait 10 more years to be able to fly an airplane. So halfway through med school, my dad knew someone had Lufthansa, the station manager in Munich. And the station manager said, Have your daughter just work for us because I know she's fascinated by airplanes. And I really just wanted to be around airplanes. So I applied to become a Customer Service Rep at Lufthansa to check people in and whatnot. And they weren't going to hire me initially. They said, well, you're kind of overqualified. You're in med school. Why would you be checking people in and say smoking or non smoking/? Which, which we did back then. So I said, I don't care. I just want to be around airplanes. 

Susanne Pries  06:44

So I started out as a Customer Service Agent, became a Ramp Supervisor. And later on a oadmaster. I saw the job posting, it said you'd based in Nairobi, you fly with the airplane from Nairobi, all over the world. And you get to sit in the cockpit while you're doing your- it's what's called weight and balance. You make sure that airplane's loaded properly, hazardous goods are spaced apart, and so basically all the math behind the loading. And that sounded amazing. I'd be able to live in Africa and sit in the cockpit and watch the guys, it was all guys at the time, do their thing. And someday I will never forget his name, Captain Solbakken, an Icelandic captain looked back at me and turned around and he said, you are really asking so many questions. I can tell you want to do this. This is what you're going to do: we land tonight in Nairobi, you will go find a flight school and you will take some flying lessons. And then come back to me and I will maybe find something, find a different path for you to become a pilot. It doesn't have to be with your national airline necessarily. 

Susanne Pries  07:58

So I did. I landed, I went home to Mombasa on the coast in Kenya, I found a flight school. One flight school. One lady was running it. A retired British Airways captain, an amazing story in its own, she was truly a trailblazer who retired in Mombasa and I became her student. On my days off, I worked on my ratings, I got my private pilot's license, I was a bush pilot in Africa flying to very interesting remote places. And I reported back to Captain Solbakken and I said I have my private pilot's license now. He was *chucles* he was quite amused that I actually pulled through with that. I said, Now what do I do? And he said, Now you just get hours. You need to bill time and then we'll go put a word in for you at Lufthansa Cargo. I got hours, went back to Captain Solbakken and unfortunately the chief pilot who said he would grant me an interview he had passed away, which was very unfortunate. So that was a hurdle. But, you know, I decided I'm not going to stop there. And then luck had it that I stayed in touch with- this is how I ended up in the US back then- I've circled back a little bit. I was an exchange student in high school and I stayed with this wonderful family in the Bay Area. And I, we'd stayed in touch. My host mom knew I wanted to pursue this dream of flying. And we were in touch and she said, Why don't you come stay with us again live with us, I know in flight school in the Bay Area. And you go from there! I'm like, Alright, off I go. 

Susanne Pries  09:43

So I moved from Africa to California, went to that flight school, got the rest of my ratings. You kind of become a private pilot first, then you become a commercial pilot, then you work on your instrument flying skills in the clouds and whatnot. And then after many hours, you can become an airline transport pilot. And that's what I did. And when I had all these ratings, then you have to build more time to become a pilot, a couple 1000 hours or so till you get hired. And I did that by becoming a flight instructor. You actually build your hours instructing other new pilots. So I did that, I got some more ratings in Tennessee, I had to live all over the place just to keep going. And my first flight instructing job took me to Florida, then I ended up back in the Bay Area again. And after I had a couple 1000 hours of instructing other pilots, I got hired with the next door operation of cargo, a small cargo plane operation that kind of did some UPS feeder flights. So I did that, billed more time. And from there, the typical path was to go to the regional airline airlines, which I did. I ended up in Portland, Oregon, flying for Verizon air. And my now husband followed me; he was kind of doing the same path and he always followed me. He was a few months behind me. So we settled in Portland. And when I had a few thousand hours of that type of regional flying, it was time to apply at the major airlines and United was always my dream being on the west coast in having a lot of international presence, which I truly like. And in 1998, I got hired at United Airlines, they just started to hire more women, there were actually seven women in my class of around 40, which was phenomenal. We were so excited. We took an apartment together. And we're just also excited to be there. So I've been with United for pretty close to 25 years. 

Mary Killelea  10:08

Wow. 

Susanne Pries  10:29

So that was I know, it was a long path. I left some stuff out. But here I am.

Mary Killelea  12:02

Oh, no, no, believe me, I'm just sitting here in awe listening to it and amazed by your determination and grit that I just envision you having. Just like continuing to drive yourself forward. Very, very impressive. Tell us about some of the difficult challenges you've had to overcome in your career and help us understand how and where you got that resilient attitude or resiliency to persevere.

Susanne Pries  12:36

I believe I got a lot of resiliency from my dad. He grew up an orphan in World War II in Germany and kind of just had to fend for himself. And he never gave up. He, without any formal education, because he was pulled from school, he's a self made man. And he he made it pretty far. And he never took no for an answer, which I didn't either. So I have my dad to thank for always encouraging me as well. Like, You go girl, you don't need to get married, you need to have kids, he literally always said that. He said, I know you want a career in flying, you just go do it. And let me know if you need help with anything. So he's supporting me all the way. My mom was just watching the whole thing going like, Oh, dear, what's she doing now? You know, when I was 17, I went to the US for a year, she's already kind of, and then I went to Africa after high school to do some volunteer work. I think she had kind of given up on the fact that I would be close by unlike my sister who lives nearby. 

Susanne Pries  13:39

So there were a lot of difficulties actually. When I applied first to become a pilot, the chief pilot or whatever his title was at the time, basically just looked at me and said, We're not taking any flight attendants right now. And I'm like, well, that's not what I'm applying for. But okay, I get it. So okay, next moving on. I tried my luck in a different country in Austria, actually, where they wouldn't even look at me at the flight office there. They looked at my then boyfriend who had come with me, just to kind of tag along, but they would not address me in person. There's just some things where you're like, alright, this is not going to work. And sometimes in you know, the the tower of Mombasa where you have to pay a landing fee. For example, I had to send my passengers, my male passenger up to the tower to pay the landing fee because they wouldn't take it from me. But you know, it's- I was never one to play a victim to say like, well, this is not fair. And how is this going to work? It was just like, Alright, I guess there's a cultural difference here and how am I gonna solve this for me? It was always just how do I solve the problem? I I didn't victimize myself. I didn't think of it as unfair. It was just kind of an obstacle that I had to go overcome. And I did. And in hindsight, there were some moments now, where you would nowadays have a name for it, you, you know, the Me Too, has brought a lot of things up. I lived that without thinking of it as a label. And it was just something in the way that had to be overcome, where you kind of have to reinvent yourself. And it really teaches you a lot of flexibility.

Mary Killelea  15:26

So much wisdom in that answer. And I love that not falling, or claiming to be a victim or labeling that as you, but really looking at that solution. That's so important for any young woman in their career, in life. So, thanks for sharing that. So now you you mentioned the cargo pilot for a while and then obviously passenger pilot. What are the differences besides the obvious? You know, was the pay the same work schedule easier or harder? What are the pros and cons of each?

Susanne Pries  16:04

So I never flew for like a really major cargo airline like UPS or FedEx. In terms of pay, they're actually very well paid. In terms of obstacles, a lot of people do not like to fly on the backside of the clock, which cargo flying entails for the most part. UPS FedEx, they're, they're out and about at night a lot, the way their hub operation works. For example, somebody takes off in say Sacramento, flies to their hub in the middle of the night, the plane gets reloaded, then you sit around from 2am to 4am. And then you fly to the next- to Tampa, for example. And their hub in Louisville, Kentucky becomes this night operation. So this all-night flying can be a little hard. That's one thing about the cargo operation that I'm kind of glad I'm not all cargo, I don't mind flying at night. And obviously, if you fly to Hong Kong at some stage, it'll be night for you. That's just what international flying does. But I'm glad I don't always have to fly the backside of the clock. Cargo flying is kind of fun, though, because you leave some of the drama out that comes with passenger flying. You know, there's always something. You've been at airports lately. And so you don't have to deal with any of that you're at the other side of the airport, and you're just kind of in your own world. You also get to see some very, very interesting places that we don't send passengers to, but goods still get transported from say, I went to Mogadishu, Somalia. Obviously not a garden spot, obviously not a place you passengers come out of on a German airline at the time. And or Yemen, Sanaa, was one of those places that I knew I would probably never see again, flying passengers. So you do see some very interesting places. And sometimes you get to stay in some places a little longer than with a passenger airline. Because, say you fly passengers to London, well, there's daily flights. So you only get a 24 hour break and you fly right back. Whereas sometimes with a cargo airline, you have a longer break till the next freighter comes or whatever logistics are involved. So cargo flying, a lot of people wouldn't want to fly passengers. It's just kind of what your body can tolerate. 

Susanne Pries  16:05

So talk to me about the training and requirements to become a pilot. I know you talked about certain hours. Are there mentoring or training programs today that women can participate in? What's kind of the, I don't want to say quick path, because there's no easy quick path. But where could someone go learn about it? And what would their expectations be? Or what could they expect?

Susanne Pries  18:49

So the two paths really to become an airline pilot is one would be through the military. And one is the civilian route. So the military route I'm not very familiar with, but that's another path where women have also excelled lately and actually at the Superbowl, did you know that all these fighter jets that flew over the stadium was all women, Navy fighter pilots? 

Mary Killelea  19:10

I did not know that!

Susanne Pries  19:10

So cool. Yes, a first this year. So there's definitely also a path there for women now. There is a lot of mentoring now. And there's a lot of academies actually, United just started in the academy last year. Their first graduating class just graduated, it's called Aviate, where our CEO has made a commitment to hire about 50% minorities, should there be enough qualified minorities. They're not just going to hire 50% minority because they have to, if there's enough qualifications. So there is mentoring going on with organizations such as Women in Aviation, aspiring female pilots can go to these conferences and and talk to mentors and other ladies who are involved in the pilot hiring. And if you apply at airlines nowadays, you're not just going to be dismissed based on your gender, it's actually welcome because they realize, with the pilot shortage, especially going on right now, we have to hire anyone who wants to fly an airplane. Whether they're female, male, or whatever race they may be. And other airlines, I know are starting academies as well and are hiring a fair share of women. So it's it's definitely much easier than it used to be. There's almost more opportunities now for women than for men, sometimes it's true, some academies.

Mary Killelea  20:26

That's fantastic. That's fantastic that there's all these opportunities. You probably can't even answer a typical day, but what is like a typical day for you, and what on earth does it feel like to fly a plane knowing that you're got so much responsibility?

Susanne Pries  21:02

Actually, there's a typical day is usually pretty typical. So there's a typical domestic flying day and a typical international flying day. Let's just say for example, I'm flying a domestic trip. And with some, I fly a little bigger plane right now. So I don't do a lot of flying because I fly usually transcon flight, say, San Francisco to New York, so you don't just fly back and forth. But if I were to fly, the smaller airplane that we have at United, a typical day would be say, you show up at your base, you fly San Francisco to LA, LA to Boise, Boise to Seattle, for example. Go to the hotel, and the next day do something similar Vegas, LA, you name it. And you could be on the road for two days, three days, four days, depending on how you bid your schedule. And then you're off for a few days, so you work about half a month. 

Susanne Pries  21:58

A typical international day is, you fly one leg, you show up a little earlier at work, there's more flight planning involved. And then there's more pilots too. Over eight hours we have three pilots, over 12 we have four pilots, because we need to take breaks in flight. And then you fly one leg, a third or half of the flight is break time, depending on how many pilots there are. You land in, say Taipei, and you have about a 24 to 26 hour break. And then you fly back on day three, and then you're done for a while because pilots only get paid when they're in the air. We only get paid from brake release to when the airplane the door opens again, when we park. So if you fly, say from San Francisco to Hong Kong, there's 15 hours of pay right there. That's a lot of flights between, say San Francisco and Los Angeles to get the same amount of pay. So typically, international flying, you have a lot more days off. And that's why it's also very desirable for people, In terms of what it feels like, it's the best job in the world and it's the best view, office view, in the world. It's an office view that changes every day. And it's fascinating every day. In terms of responsibility, I don't really think- I know I have a lot of people back there. But I don't really think of these people right at that moment when I say, take off. I am so focused on the task, and so focused on, you know, any kind of emergency that could be coming my way and checklists and what I need to do. That task right now is your main focus. And once you're in the area, like oh, yeah, it's not bumpy, let's let the people up and whatnot. But for the most part, you're just so focused on the actual operation of the airplane that you don't always think of, oh my gosh, there's 400 people back there. What am I going to do? It's actually funny when I train pilots. They're so busy, the very new pilots on their first leg, for example, they're so busy trying to just make everything work. Later, it dawns on them like, oh, yeah, there were all these people back there. You sometimes almost forget.

Mary Killelea  24:09

Let's talk about the reality of how few women airline pilots there are and the opportunities that are open.

Susanne Pries  24:18

There are more and more women becoming pilots, but there's still not a very large amount or percentage of women that actually stick with the job. Currently, I think I believe about around five to 6% of airline pilots are women. United actually has the highest percentage of women of American airlines. We have a little over 7% now I believe. We only have about 2% of our female pilots as captains and we're less than 1% now with the check pilots. It's just always been kind of a guy thing. And the funny thing is we're now called Check Pilots as of last month. We used to be called Check Airmen. And they just changed the name from Line Check Airmen to Line Check Pilot, so that's a little shift there. There's one foreign airline, Air India, I read has 12.6% women now, so, which is phenomenal. So it's getting there. Because through career days, and you know, these academies, girls find out, Oh, I can do this. I remember when I did a career day at my son's middle school, I showed up in my uniform and like, oh, okay, the girls were so excited. They didn't know it was something they could actually do. So it's changing.

Mary Killelea  25:41

Well, and having women like you who come on podcast like mine, and share your story and are role modeling this as a career is helping that too. So I appreciate that. 

Susanne Pries  25:54

Yeah, of course! 

Mary Killelea  25:56

So as a pilot, how did 9/11 affect you? And how was your career impacted?

Susanne Pries  26:03

9/11 was very bad. 

Mary Killelea  26:05

Yeah. 

Susanne Pries  26:07

In a nutshell. It led, for in my case, it led to furlough as well. And the career just came to a screeching halt. And we didn't know what would be next. It was, it was very rough, my airline was affected during 9/11. It was actually, I had flown one of those airplanes, I was flying those particular airplanes at the time on those routes that were affected. So it hits, it hit home, and it was very hard. And when I was furloughed, I had a one and a two year old at home, I realized how as pilots how little we know, other than flying airplanes. I couldn't even do an Excel spreadsheet. I mean, we are so specialized in what we do that it's very hard to find another job. I got recruited by some airlines overseas during that time, but that wasn't an option. I had two babies at home, basically, and a husband who also flies. So we kind of had to reinvent ourselves a little bit, we had to move and downsize and I got a real estate license. And because that's something I could do fairly quickly. And I sold real estate for a few years. And although that was a fun adventure, it made me realize even more how much I love flying. It was a very hard time for me just to drive to the airport and I still get emotional, I literally was teary eyed driving to the airport, seeing airplanes land and take off and knowing I can do this. It's like having your wings clipped. It was a hard time. And it took a long time to recover. And it had long term career repercussions because we lost some seniority through mergers and bankruptcy happened at the airlines. And especially with both of us being airline pilots. It's, it took a lot, a lot of adjustment. And the job/s never been the same really. I mean, with all the security and whatnot. You know, we're locked up for the duration of the flight and in the flight deck and whatnot. Yeah, it was not a good time.

Mary Killelea  28:10

You mentioned two things that I want to follow up on. I assume the structure of pay for a pilot being based on seniority. Is that true?

Susanne Pries  28:19

That's correct. Yes, we have a very, you can see, you just go online right now you could Google 'United pay'. And you could see exactly what what pilot makes after how many years flying. It's, we have a union, Airline Pilots Association, and they help us negotiate those contracts. And then it's all very transparent. In the corporate world, it's a little different. You know, I flew corporate for a little bit as well during furlough out for Intel in Hillsboro. And there it's kind of a little more negotiable. But the airlines, it's just very straightforward. You know exactly how much you're going to make. When you're at year, say 12, we max out and then it stays the same.

Mary Killelea  29:03

Oh, very interesting. The other thing that you touched on in that earlier question that I wanted to follow up on was being a working mom who's had a career as a as a pilot. What advice do you have to others who might be holding back from their dreams? Because they fear they can't have it all.

Susanne Pries  29:21

The advice I have is to be very flexible, and to have a very understanding partner, and to be to be willing to move initially. Personally I commute to work. I'm based in San Francisco, and I will be based in Chicago next month. I have to first fly there to go to work. It sounds very glamorous for people but it's actually not. It's a long day. I have to first go to Chicago before I even started my work trip. Because a lot of pilot bases are in very big cities where maybe you don't want to raise a family or you can't afford to raise a family in San Francisco or New York or these big hubs. So the advice I have is to have an understanding partner that's maybe willing to move with you to a place that makes it easier for you to have a career. The other piece of advice I have is to find an airline, and there's more and more of them, where you have some flexibility. There are some airlines where you can drop flying, where you can drop to lesser hours than full time, which I did for a while. If there's enough coverage at my airline, right now, I could drop down to zero hours. I have to stay current, obviously, and fly a certain amount, but that is super nice that there's this flexibility these days, in a lot of airlines. Where you can be a mom, you can be home a lot. When the kids were little I elected to work less, and I was home 20 days a month and only flew 10 days a month, which is super nice to have that flexibility. So at the beginning stages, though you don't have a lot of flexibility, you're on call. So I'm not going to tell women when to have their babies, but it might be worth it to wait a couple of years after you've had a few years of seniority at the airline and you get more control over your schedule. And then you can pick and choose a little more when you're going to fly and when/how much you're going to be home. And it makes it so much easier than to raise a family.

Mary Killelea  31:20

That's great. What would you tell your 20 year old self?

Susanne Pries  31:25

To do it all over again. I have no regrets. The only regrets I have is that it took a little longer. I didn't you know, I didn't know all the ins and outs. But there was no internet at the time, I couldn't research, How do I become a bush pilot in Africa? So it's just harder. You know you so it took longer. So I would do it exactly the same way again, really!

Mary Killelea  31:51

Have you ever jumped out of a plane?

Susanne Pries  31:54

Yes. I've done about four tandem jumps. And people are like, What are you thinking you jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I'm a thrill seeker. I love adventure. And that was just something I always wanted to do. And I wanted to jump out of a DC3, which is one of my favorite airplanes and there was a place in California that had that and that was that was a thrill. I would not do it again though it that's just something I did before I had kids. And once you have kids, you revisit some of your adventures such as you know, I was riding a motorcycle in Africa because I didn't have a car. That's not something I would do again either.

Mary Killelea  32:35

I did jump out of a plane once when I was 21. But I wouldn't go twice. Yeah, it was so exhilarating.

Susanne Pries  32:42

It is. It says it takes your breath away, literally.

Mary Killelea  32:47

Yeah exactly. What does 2B Bolder mean to you?

Susanne Pries  32:50

2B Bolder means to me that, if you have a dream, if you have a passion, you empower yourself to pursue that by studying hard. I would always tell my daughter as well. It's like get your education under control, get all your degrees and further yourself with languages, stand out, further yourself more than the people around you. And then you have an easier time to pursue that dream. And you will also feel stronger with education. In my case it was foreign languages that got me my jobs. My loadmaster job was because I learned Arabic. My first flight instructor job was I got because I'm bilingual, they needed a German speaking flight instructor. You just never know when education is needed or sets you apart. So 2B Bolder is to find the strength to study as hard as you can and then to just pursue your dream and not take no for an answer. And if you have to zigzag and backtrack occasionally, that's okay. It's never linear. And you might find another passion on the way.

Mary Killelea  34:06

I love that. What is your favorite plane that you've ever flown?

Susanne Pries  34:14

The Boeing 777. It is a phenomenal plane, you have up to 115,000 pounds of thrust per engine now and we go by thrust not by horsepower, say that's maybe about 5000 horsepower per side. And that thrill of taking the runway and adding all this thrust and hearing the roar, but to me it's just exhilarating and it flies beautifully. It's like, it's literally a big bird.

Mary Killelea  34:49

I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this conversation. I literally was lying in bed last night thinking of all, not only these questions, but just how excited I was to interview someone who is doing a job that I couldn't imagine doing. And thank you so much for sharing. In closing, do you have any words of advice for those that are considering to be a pilot?

Susanne Pries  35:13

My advice would be if, if there's a girl or young woman or lady out there who's thinking about flying, go to a local airport, a small airport and take a fam-what's called fam flight, familiarization flight. Find a flight instructor that and rent that flight instructor with the airplane for an hour. I did that with my daughter, actually, when she was 17. And take them up for an hour. It's, they're either gonna love it, or it's gonna go be like, Okay, that was fun. But there's some people who just say, Wow, that's really it, and you get to fly a little bit and hold the air, you know, hold the controls up, they're usually in cruise. And if-if a switch flips, when you do that, you know, you will be able to pursue that dream because you want it so badly. So start out with a fam flight or reach out to a mentor. I'm a mentor at my current airline, for the new pilots that are already on the property. But there are mentors out there that also mentor people that are thinking about becoming a pilot.

Mary Killelea  36:19

And where could they find out more information on that?

Susanne Pries  36:24

They could probably go on these Academy websites or Women in Aviation websites, I would think would be a good starting point. There's also an organization of international airline pilots, but they are already on the property. So I'd probably start with Women in Aviation.

Mary Killelea  36:43

Great. Thank you so so much for sharing your story.

Susanne Pries  36:48

Thank you, Mary. It's been a pleasure.

Mary Killelea  36:49

Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to please go check out our website at 2Bbolder.com That's the number two, little B, bolder.com.