Imagine you’re a mom of three little ones, you are a flight attendant in the ’90s, and you come home one day and tell your husband you want to become a commercial airline pilot. You do it, and then 25 years later, you and your pilot daughter make history as the first mother-daughter duo at Southwest to fly together. Grit, gumption, courage? You’ll learn how these two special pilots are living their dreams together.
Resources
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Transcript
Bonnie Habyan:
Today we’re going to talk about breaking barriers literally in the sky. That’s because I’m sitting down with Captain Holly Petitt and her daughter, First Officer Keely Petitt. They are a mother-daughter duo who work for Southwest Airlines as pilots. Now, they made history in 2022 when they flew together from Denver to St. Louis, and I ran across an article doing some research for the podcast, and I just loved their story. I mean, this is a special historical and unique story, and it’s very worth knowing. So I was lucky to get them both to agree to come on the podcast at the same time, because as you can imagine, They are like ships passing in the night, or I think it’s more appropriate to say planes passing in the air in this case, as their schedules take them all over the country. So welcome, ladies. I am so happy to have you both. This is such an inspirational, fun, happy story. And thank you for taking the time to hop on with me.
Holly Petitt: Thank you, Bonnie. It’s so exciting to be here with you. Thank you so much for having us.
Bonnie Habyan: And I told you Holly, my daughter’s name is Holly, so I have a special affinity for you. Holly, I, you know, I want to dive right in. Can you describe or share with my friends here, I call them my friends or my pals that are listeners, the moment you realized that you wanted to become a pilot and how did that epiphany shape your career path? So when did you first think this is what I want to do?
Holly Petitt: I started my aviation career as a flight attendant and I was booking a ferry flight and that’s a flight that doesn’t have passengers on board. So flight attendants are allowed to sit up front and observe the pilots in action. I sat up there and I just had an aha moment. It just hit me. This is it. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life. And so I went home to my husband at the time and said, I want to be a pilot. And I just fell so madly in love with it. I didn’t give up and just kept moving forward towards it.
Bonnie Habyan: Wait a minute. I didn’t realize that. So you were a flight attendant for Southwest. Who were you a flight attendant for?
Holly Petitt: For United Airlines.
Bonnie Habyan: Okay. So you’re a flight attendant. How old were you at the time?
Holly Petitt: Straight out of college. Yeah, which at the time was pretty cool. Pretty cool. Straight out of college. I think maybe two or three years after college, I started as a flight attendant for United. I did that for three years and then got that bug to become a pilot.
Bonnie Habyan: Okay. And you were allowed to sit in, I guess what is called the cockpit, right? If I don’t get this nomenclature correct, let me know.
Holly Petitt: I like to call it the flight deck.
Bonnie Habyan: The flight deck. Okay. So someone invites you. Was it another pilot said, Hey, you can sit up here or you just knew you could, or how did you get to do that?
Holly Petitt: It’s part of our rules and regulations. We know we can do it, but the pilots invite us. So I got invited and I sat up there and just had an aha moment. It was, it just blew me away. I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.
Bonnie Habyan: That changed your life. That one invitation of someone saying, come sit up here. That was like, oh my goodness, I think this is what I want to do. So you go home, you tell your husband, did you have children then?
Holly Petitt: We had three small kids all under the age of five. That is insane. It really is a temporary insanity because both of us, we were like, well, at first it was funny because he just kind of giggled, laughed because he was like, oh my gosh, we have three kids. How can we possibly make this work? But we sat down, talked through it and he’s like, okay, let’s do this. And he supported me 100% and It was a challenge having those three small kids, but that’s what’s super important is you just put one foot in front of the other. You take your time, you make it work for what works for you and your family.
Bonnie Habyan: Well, I think that’s amazing that you had support in your family, and obviously raising three children alone is a full-time job. Being able to now say, okay, I’m going to go to, is it flight school? I mean, what did that entail?
Holly Petitt: Absolutely. So I would take time off from being a flight attendant. It was called without pay, so I could drop my trips. And then I would go and fly a little local flight school here in Loveland, Colorado, and just build my time slowly. So you just start with your private pilots and commercial pilots licenses. You have to build all of your licenses, pilots licenses, and then you go on to the regionals.
Bonnie Habyan: Okay. So how long did that take you?
Holly Petitt: I did it kind of quick. I focused on a regional that was smaller and I built more valuable flight time first. I did it kind of out of the norm too, because I started later in life. So I really worked hard and focused on a smaller regional carrier. So it took me about two years from my first flight lesson to my first job as a first officer.
Bonnie Habyan: That’s not bad. Not bad at all. No, no. And did you have any, like, safety concerns? I mean, as a mom, where you have three kids, I mean, that’s got to be, like, a little daunting in the whole thought of it.
Holly Petitt: You know, I never had fear with flying. It’s funny because I have fear if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff after a hundred meters looking over, and I have that fear. But when I’m in the air, zero fear. It’s just a love for flying, I guess, that overcomes that fear.
Bonnie Habyan: Okay, so let me go to Keely. How old were you, or were you born at the time your mom started this process?
Keely Petitt: Yeah, I was two maybe, maybe three. So I don’t remember. I wasn’t old enough to remember her doing all her training and flying all the small aircraft, but there’s a bunch of pictures that we have of her in front of a Piper Seminole with all three of us in her lap. Yeah, so I was really little when she started flying.
Bonnie Habyan: So when did you first realize that it was kind of cool to have a mom that’s a pilot?
Keely Petitt: You know, really early on, it was just so exciting, like seeing the joy she had. But one of my earliest memories that I remember that to this day still feels really impactful and meaningful was, you know, growing up, both parents always said, you know, you can be whatever you want. It doesn’t matter if you see a lot of boys doing it or a lot of girls doing it, like anything you want to do, you can do it. Hearing that and watching her put those words into action was one of the most meaningful things of my whole life.
Bonnie Habyan: Yeah. Did you ever do show and tell or come in and do career day at school, Holly?
Holly Petitt: Absolutely. In fact, we have this really cool program at Southwest where we go to fifth graders. And so I did each of their fifth grade classrooms. I’d spend weeks. I’d come once a week for months and talk all aviation and send them pictures from the road and all kinds of stuff like that.
Keely Petitt: And it was so cool because everyone was always like, your mom is so cool. This is so awesome. And I always got to brag and be like, yeah, I know. That’s my mom.
Bonnie Habyan: And you know what? I mean, I think back because I had an awesome mom. I wrote a book about my mom, but she went to the ninth grade, right? And she had all these dreams. And she always told me at a very young age, You can be and do anything you want, never depend on anyone financially. Two great pieces of advice from someone who never even graduated high school. So I always think, yeah, right? So they truly are huge role models in your life, moms are. So when you see them in action the way you have, that had to give you so much confidence. And I want to read a few stats here, which I find very interesting. And I want to, you guys got to tell me if I’m on point here, because I’m giving you stats, but you are boots on the ground. So in 1980, approximately, According to the FAA, 1980, approximately 3.5% of commercial pilots were women. By 2000, the number had risen a little bit to about 5.2%. And in 2022, that’s the most recent date I could find, about 7% are women. Is that accurate or do you see more?
Holly Petitt: I think that’s pretty accurate. It’s definitely accurate. Yeah. I think the number of women overall has risen. the percentages are correct. So when I first started this career, you hardly ever saw other female pilots. Now you see more of them, even though the numbers aren’t that much greater because there’s just more pilots in the system, right? And you definitely, like, I never, maybe once in my early years, flew with another female pilot. And now it’s really exciting because it happens more and more.
Bonnie Habyan: Yeah, they say for some reason growth in that particular industry or traditionally male-dominated fields have, you know, exploded for women, but in this one in particular it hasn’t. So, I’m just kind of wondering, you know, if it’s an interest, a skill set. Who knows, but it’s interesting to see that that slice of the industry hasn’t grown quite as fast. So, let me ask you, Holly. You know, back then, I’m sure when you walked onto the planes at times, they probably said, here comes the flight attendant, right, not the pilot. But what were some of your toughest obstacles you faced in that journey and how did you overcome them?
Holly Petitt: Absolutely. Many times still in my uniform pilot today, people confuse you for a flight attendant. That’s very common. But however, my biggest obstacles I say would be being a mother because my heart longed to be home with my children. And it didn’t get easier as they got older, maybe even harder because there’s more fun interactions as they grow older. It’s just special each step of the way. And being away from them was hard. The first time I ever left my oldest daughter at home, I cried the whole way to the airport. But I had such a passion for work and wanting to be a role model for my children that Really balancing being a mom and a full-time mom and having a full-time career was definitely my biggest obstacle.
Bonnie Habyan: Kaley, you know, from the perspective of a little girl watching her mom as a pilot, well, how did that impact your own career aspirations? And when did you kind of think to yourself, I think I want to do that?
Keely Petitt: Yeah, it was actually in high school. So I was a little bit older and my mom got all of us, me and my two siblings, intro flights for Christmas one year. And I went up and I fell in love with it.
Bonnie Habyan: What is an intro flight? Sorry, it’s an introduction flight.
Keely Petitt: So you go. Oh, intro flight. It’s about an hour long and you just get to experience flying for the first time. So all kinds of little local FBOs or flight schools have them. Most of them do. I never knew that. That’s so cool. So if anyone’s ever interested in like, oh, maybe flying’s for me, that’s a great way to start is you just, you know, find a nearby FBO or flight school and just call them and say, hey, do you offer intro flights and get some information on that. So that’s actually how I found out that I wanted to fly, because I feel like most kids growing up, I wanted to do something different every day. And then it was the second that I went flying, I was like, yep, this is it.
Bonnie Habyan: Well, she must have been born right from you, Holly, right? I think so. Did you have any similar obstacles, or did you feel any obstacles in going through the process, Kaylee?
Keely Petitt: Yeah, I think a lot of dreams come with obstacles, and I definitely face some in aviation as well. You know, you’re always battling stigmas that some people may have being, you know, not what your stereotypical pilot is or looks like. And there’s a big time sacrifice that comes with flying too. And it has been hard. It’s cost some friendships and relationships that people don’t understand, like career, you know, and
Bonnie Habyan: It’s unfortunate, but… No, explain that to me. I think that’s really fascinating. Sad, obviously, but that’s fascinating. So you feel because of the time that’s required and putting into flying that it has impacted. I mean, it’s tough. It’s a sacrifice.
Keely Petitt: It is, yeah. And some examples that come to mind is when I got my class date at Southwest, it had been 11 years since my intro flight. And at my intro flight, I was like, that’s it. I want to be a pilot. I want to be a pilot for Southwest. It was about 11 years later, since I was in high school and doing all my training. And I got a job offer for Southwest. And it was the best day of my life. And I had to miss someone who was, at the time, my best friend. I missed her wedding. I missed a funeral. And it has definitely impacted those relationships now. I think that an unfortunate part of life is you just can’t do everything and you can’t be everywhere at once. And I just knew I had to follow my dreams because I had spent so much time and effort and the people who really love you and care about you will always support you.
Bonnie Habyan: I totally agree. I totally agree. My husband’s in baseball, so I’ve lived a similar sort of eight months away. He just retired this week. It’s the same thing. Miss a lot of things, but it’s part of the course. It’s part of what makes that field very difficult to obtain and the dream come true for you, but yeah, it’s like anything else. There are sacrifices that you have to give. Let me ask you this, Holly. Were you good with Keeley wanting to be a pilot? Any concerns there from you?
Holly Petitt: ecstatic because it’s a unique industry. It’s a unique career. To truly understand it, you have to be engrossed in it. And I would come home and not be able to talk shop with anybody. It’s like I had no other pilots at home to talk about my career that I was passionate about. So the second she fell in love with flying, I was ecstatic because now we have this common bond that I didn’t have with anybody else in my immediate family. She’d text me, mom, I just flew an ILS and I’d be all ecstatic and we’d go up flying together. So yes, from the second she decided to be a pilot, I was on cloud nine, but I never pressured the kids because I truly believe it’s so important to find your passion and follow that. I didn’t want to force my passion onto any of them, but I was on cloud nine when she found her passion in flying too.
Bonnie Habyan: Okay, so now you both have jobs at Southwest, and then how does this come together, this historic moment of you two flying together? Like, how does that come about?
Holly Petitt: Oh my gosh. It’s a crazy story because she finished new hire training and I was just watching her schedule like a hawk because I’m like, I want to fly with her. This is a big moment for me and her. We didn’t know at the time we were the first mother-daughter duo. Oh, you didn’t know that? At Southwest. We had no idea. I was reaching out to her captain the second she got her first trip on her board after training. and work in magic so he would give me his trip and I’d give him a trip and we got our trip together. And then I reached out to my friend who’s also at Southwest and he’s like, you know what? I don’t think we’ve ever had a mother-daughter team at Southwest. And so he reached out to PR and all of a sudden they got word. We were the first mother-daughter duo and it exploded.
Bonnie Habyan: No pressure, no pressure that day, right? No, we’re just flying in the sky. So all of a sudden you go from this, oh my gosh, I just want to fulfill this little dream of flying with my daughter, which is amazing. And of course, someone takes a step back and says, that’s super cool and that’s historic. What happens then? How does all this attention come? And kind of tell me a little bit about that day.
Keely Petitt: Yeah. So that day, or I guess maybe a month or a week before, I can’t remember now exactly the timeline, but beforehand, Southwest PR team reaches out and they’re like, we’re so excited. Like, can we, are you comfortable? Great story. It’s a great story. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. But they’re like, we want to, you know, bring a camera crew and like follow your journey on that first day, take some time for some interviews, you know? So it was so cool to see just like how much support and like celebration Southwest was giving us too. Absolutely. That morning we, I drove up to my mom’s house and we got ready together and we had all our family there. My fiance was there.
Bonnie Habyan: Sort of like a wedding, but you do it for a flight, right?
Keely Petitt: Similar. Exactly.
Holly Petitt: We drove to the airport together, rode on the employee shuttle bus together.
Keely Petitt: Yeah, we got to the airport. We did some interviews and stuff with Southwest.
Bonnie Habyan: You know, from a confidence perspective and an empowerment perspective, that must have just felt really good. I mean, working as hard as you did to do something that, you know, a lot of people haven’t had the opportunity to do. And then to do it together as a mom and daughter, what an amazing accomplishment and feeling that must have been for you both that day.
Holly Petitt: Absolutely. It really was surreal for me as a mom because, you know, you have this tiny little baby and in a blink of an eye, they’re driving a car. Blink of an eye, they’re off to college. And then the blink of an eye, she’s sitting next to you on the flight deck of a Boeing 737. So it was just a magical, surreal moment I will never, ever forget. And I’m beyond grateful to Southwest because seriously, they made it. beyond my wildest dreams. So special. Yeah, so special and just embraced us with all their heart.
Bonnie Habyan: That’s fabulous, especially to have a nice winning culture that also surrounds you. When you’re flying in the air, can you share any of the dialogue? What did you guys talk about? Clothes, the latest pop culture, maybe a little bachelor?
Holly Petitt: I think we both were just like, ecstatic. And for me, I would just like look over and see her sitting there and tear up because Oh, God, I couldn’t make me cry. That’s amazing. And we’ve cried a lot through this because it’s just been magical. Yeah. How about for you and magical?
Keely Petitt: Yeah, I think, especially something for me that I don’t know if I’ve talked about a lot is just the comfort of your new and you have this like, what can be kind of a high stress job, right? If there’s a lot of responsibility flying an aircraft, and then looking over and having my day one supporter who I’m like, if I need to ask a question or just need extra support, I’m like, of course, I’m going to get it from my mom who’s sitting right next to me. It just makes the job feel so much comfortable and so much easier.
Bonnie Habyan: Yeah. You know what? You have a built-in mentor.
Keely Petitt: Yeah, absolutely. My whole career, she was always that. Anytime I didn’t know what to do, I’d be like, hold on, let me call my mom. And it actually became so much that my friends in college, they’d be like, Keely, can you call your mom and ask her XYZ? Oh yeah, let me call Holly.
Bonnie Habyan: That’s wonderful. You know what, in just so many ways, just from a relationship perspective and achievement perspective. So let me ask you a little, you know, a couple of other questions. You know, do you see any other changes or not even changes, but initiatives to maybe encourage other women to want to pursue a career in, I guess we would call it aviation. commercial aviation.
Holly Petitt: I think that’s the hardest part about our industry is that if you’re not exposed to aviation at a young age, a lot of young girls don’t even consider it as an option. You just don’t realize it’s an option that’s out there. And I think Southwest is really good, too. They’ll have aviation career days. So they bring kids in from school. And Keely and I get to participate in those. It’s so fun interacting with the youth and just helping them find a spark, a passion for the aviation industry. I think there’s more and more, like there’s women in aviation, there’s all these organizations really trying to help spread the word, so to speak.
Bonnie Habyan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, I didn’t even realize I had those intro flights. I had no idea that that was even something that you could possibly do. And I think you hit the nail on the head, Holly, like growing up, I didn’t even enter a commercial airline until I was 18 when I was coming from school. That was my first time even being on an airplane. So you had the ability to introduce your children to it at a very young age. They became comfortable with the concept. It didn’t seem overwhelming. It seemed possible. But for me, No, I had a mom who really didn’t have a whole lot of career experience. We didn’t have the money to fly. It’s just changing. So I think as those things evolve, and I do think as people are exposed to things more, even from the digital perspective, maybe they will start to see this as a career option. Absolutely. I hope so. Let me ask you this. I want you, and one of the things that we really try to do here is kind of persuade or tell folks a little bit of a winning formula to approach in their careers, to approach in kind of putting themselves out. Whether it’s from a time of just starting like you, Keely, or in an age like myself where you’re reinventing, I think it’s important sometimes for people to share how they’ve been able to do things so that others can emulate that. So I’d love to hear some in-depth thoughts from both of you, two generations, of how you would approach things now to help others kind of go for their dreams and whoever wants to start first.
Holly Petitt: For me, I would say follow your heart. live your passion and never give up. There’s always obstacles along any journey through life and just keep putting one foot in front of the other to follow that passion and truly just never give up.
Bonnie Habyan: Well, when you say that, though, that does come with certain sort of, you have to be able to have the support, right? You have to, I mean, are there certain things that you say that you know highly made a difference in being able to do this? I mean, I don’t know if every partner would be like, okay, yeah, we’ve got a couple of kids, you go fly for, that has to be a true partnership. So I’d love to hear any thoughts on that.
Holly Petitt: Absolutely, and I didn’t discuss another important part of all that is my mom and my aunt. They both lived five minutes from us and helped take care of the kids because my husband worked full time. Oh my goodness. Full time, he had his own business and he worked so hard and then supported me unconditionally to pursue this. So I would say find your tribe, absolutely. And it doesn’t have to be a spouse. It doesn’t have to be a mom. It can just be that person for you who gives you the support to keep pursuing that dream.
Bonnie Habyan: I love that. Find your tribe. I didn’t ask this, but I need to ask, what were your mother’s thoughts when you said, hey ma, I’m going to flight school. Oh, hmm.
Holly Petitt: No, it’s funny because every time we had a new baby, she’s like, a second baby? A third baby? But she was such a trooper. She just supported me unconditionally and loved the kids more than anything. And then she’s so proud that I followed this career, pursued this career. And I think she couldn’t be happier that she got to be there and support me each step of the way.
Bonnie Habyan: So I love Holly’s formula, find your tribe. And I’m going to remember that. That’s a great one. All right, Keely, I want to hear yours because I think coming from a little bit of a different generation, you may have something really powerful as well to share with others.
Keely Petitt: Yeah, so I’d say my formula is where an encouragement meets grit. And I say, like, I want to talk a little bit about each for me, encouragement, like, it’s like mom says, it can be your tribe, it can be from others. But also something that someone told me that one of the best pieces of advice is, you are only small, if you tell yourself you’re small. And that really stuck with me. So You can be your own biggest encourager. You can be your own biggest cheerleader. You can, you know, you can be the encouragement that you need. So I think that’s a huge piece. And then just the grit of like having the passion and having the drive and not giving up because like watching my mom go through, you know, the hurdles of her career was a great way for me to realize that, like, it doesn’t have to be easy for it to be good. Sometimes the hardest things take the most effort, but they’re also the most rewarding. So I think for me, that’s that would be my My formula is where encouragement meets grit.
