It is not just in the developing world women are not holding their own in top Airport Operations Management positions.

It is not always their fault, but Aviation is very male dominated, and the developing world tends to also be very male dominated, at the Government and the cultural level, where women usually hold token positions.

In our VCBIA case the last two women CEOs, though well educated in their specific areas of learning were not accomplished in modern airport operations. And, even if they were, the male dominance expected in the industry and government in holding the reins would fail them.

The casual remark made by aviators, ‘Aviation is a 24/7/366’ says it all. Aviation demands presence and passion, in order to become totally Rules & Regulations oriented, with an understanding of why Transparency is always an imperative.

Realistically, the model woman in our islands is expected to take care of the household, hold a job to help with the expenses, and still find time to coddle man and children. The latter demand requires time and passion, just as does an active airport.

In any event, the likelihood of a woman at midnight to morning on the airport, overlooking Public Workers filling in a hole on the runway is dim.

Further, the many angles and conflicting areas of airport work demanding constant intervention, can rattle women,as most airport operations require dictating to males.

The Caribbean man has grave difficulty taking orders from women in powerful positions, and tend not to help them retain their heights attained.

Finally, women too, allow their ‘catty’ behaviour to appear in their management battles, where, unlike their opposites, they become personal and forget their high role.

They either surround themselves with women as protection and attack teams, or alternately with fawning men, usually the soft stupid ones who will stand up for nothing.

Airports in the developing world need strong dedicated persons at the top, and very few women are prepared to go all the way, taking the hard knocks from inexperienced government officials, to keep planes from falling out of the sky.

V.C. Bird, our Father of the nation, was a strong, decisive man of vision, who never failed to call his experts and technicians to report and fix their failures, and Antigua should demand the same heights of professionalism, integrity and responsibility to our airport which carries his name.