At just 30-years-old Anny Divya is the youngest woman ever to captain a Boeing 777 . But realising her dream hasn’t been easy.
Anny started training to be a pilot at the age of 17, and although she was supported by her parents, other family members did not agree with her career choice.
But Anny, who grew up in Andhra Pradesh, India, refused to listen to her critics.
Instead she persevered with her career path until she was able to join the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA), a flying school in Uttar Pradesh.
She went on to train in Spain and London before gaining her wings as a qualified commercial flyer.
Anny credits her entire success to her mother and father, who is a retired army official.
When she struggled financially, she said her parents helped her cover the costs of the education, despite having no guarantee that she would ever be in a secure enough position to pay the money back.
Anny told Times Now : “I am thankful to my parents and teachers for what I am today.
“My parents really believed in my goal and let me fly. There were no jobs at the time, so it’s not like the money my parents were putting in was something that I could earn later. “Nobody was doing any pilot course in Vijayawada at that time. So I was not encouraged to do it by a lot of people around me. But I just wanted to fly.”
Anny admitted it was not easy, and said she was bullied for her English skills while she tried to grasp the language. She said: “People made fun and laughed at me but I knew that I had to speak – even if I made mistakes - to actually learn.
“People used to mock me for my poor English and that hurt me a lot.” Anny refused to give up, and continued to try out her English skills at her flying school, until she had a much better grasp of pronunciation.
Then aged 19, she travelled to Spain for further training, which is where she first flew a Boeing 737.
Then, aged 21, Anny was sent to London to complete advance training and piloted a Boeing 777 for the first time. Amazingly, being the youngest female captain of a Boeing 777 is not the only impressive part of Anny’s story. She has also earned a degree in BSC Aviation, is a classical keyboard player, a dancer – and has a post-graduate degree in law. Mirror
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