PPE has rarely, if ever, been designed with women in mind, leading to discomfort and safety concerns. Grace Hardy speaks to PPE manufacturers and industry experts to discover the depth of this issue.
This article, “One size fits one” was published in the June/July ‘25 issue of RotorHub International. To read more, apply for your complimentary subscription today.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has never been comfortable. Lifejackets can be bulky, helmets can be heavy, and flight suits can be designed for a completely different body shape than your own.
The latter, at least, is the reality for many women in aviation. Not only can ill-fitting PPE be especially uncomfortable for women, but it can also be less effective and even dangerous.
2024 data from the FAA shows that 10.8 per cent of pilots and 29 per cent
of non-pilots (Mechanics, Ground Instructors, Dispatchers, Flight Navigators, etc) are women.
However, for too long has a “lack of women” been an excuse for not providing appropriate PPE, when within these statistics 91,694 pilots and 221,459 non-pilots are potentially in need of better gear.
A pilot’s perspective – The impacts of ill-fitting PPE on safety, efficiency and work well-being
Janine Lythe, co-founder of Pilots Who Ask Why, is a Senior First Officer working in offshore operations. After five years, it was only in the last two weeks of her role that she finally got an immersion suit made for women by VIKING, something that she did not realise she was missing.
Lythe says: “You’re told: ‘Here’s all the standard lifejackets and here’s all the standard suits,’ and that’s how it was. If you wanted something special, it was a bit of a palaver. You don’t want to moan because you love your job, so you crack on. Only now I’ve got this, I wish I had it the whole time. All these years, this has been a nightmare.”
Lythe’s first immersion suit was less than ideal. It was heavy, bulky, and only had a comfort zip (an opening for toilet access) at the front. However, she set these discomforts aside.
The lack of a female comfort zip is a critical issue, creating health concerns for pilots who opt to not drink enough water before and during flights.
“Water is essential, but most female pilots just drink enough to be well, but not enough to have to pee on a rig,” says Lythe. “You have to fully undress and then redress, which is not ideal in small toilets, and you’re conscious you’ve got an aircraft burning fuel.”
Upon receiving her female suit fitted with a hip-to-hip zip that allowed for quick and easy comfort breaks, Lythe suddenly realised the extent of the problem. The ability to drink water and go to the toilet felt like a new luxury.
From there, Lythe noticed other aspects of the suit that improved her experience in ways she hadn’t previously considered.
With the new suit being more fitted to her waist, Lythe realised that the excess fabric of her previous suit had been affecting the fit of her lifejacket.
“When I was wearing the lifejacket, I had to frequently tighten the bottom strap to make sure it was fitted or wasn’t hurting my shoulders,” she says. “With the new one, when I’d tighten my lifejacket in the morning, throughout the day it stayed tight to my body, which was such a joy.”
The suit also looked better, something that some pilots seem reluctant to mention as an issue due to concerns over being accused of simply wanting to look “good”.
However, there is a correlation between PPE and how a person is perceived in the workplace.
“It shouldn’t matter, but you feel a bit nicer in it because it’s fitted,” says Lythe. “Flying offshore is not a beauty contest, but it’s nice to feel like you don’t look horrendous. The materials are nicer, it’s more fitted to the body, so my other gear fits properly and I just feel nicer as a person.”
There is no doubt that a flight suit designed for the female body had a significant impact on Lythe’s comfort, health, and overall enjoyment. But did her original suit represent a larger issue?
For Lythe, the aviation industry has always been accepting of her as a member of the team. She sees herself as a pilot, not a female pilot, but she also recognises that women have a range of experiences in aviation, and that there are still very few women in the industry, especially in offshore operations.
This has impacted areas such as maternity pay in aviation, which Lythe describes as “horrendous”.
She believes that with better exposure and representation for young women and girls, more women will enter the industry and change will gradually happen.
The manufacturers’ perspective – Challenges and strategies in tailoring PPE for women in aviation
The topic of providing PPE for women is a complex subject for the manufacturers. VIKING and AUK Protection are two manufacturers of aviation PPE with different strategies, target markets, and options for women.
AUK Protection
Established in 2012, AUK Protection describes itself as a group of helicopter pilots creating the PPE they wished they already had.
Named after the family of birds, auks live in Arctic, subarctic, and north temperate regions. These harsh conditions are what AUK Protection designs its clothing for.
With suits, tops, and trousers that are more akin to hiking or skiing clothing than the typical flight suit, AUK Protection has established itself within a niche market.
Johan Baumann, co-founder and COO of AUK Protection, says: “In the beginning, I landed with my heli outside one of the designer’s offices. She came running out with needles in her mouth, cameras, tape, and adjusted my suit, got pictures, and off I went. It was very hands-on development.”
Initially, AUK Protection didn’t offer specific women’s sizes, but rather a range of unisex sizes with the three smallest having a “women’s cut”.
However, this caused some confusion, and so last year the company made four women’s sizes, ranging from extra small to large.
AUK Protection says that if a woman is taller than a women’s large, then they will fit a unisex small or medium.
AUK Protection also makes a limited number of custom suits, but due to being a smaller company, the service is not available as an option on their website, but rather on a case-by-case basis.
An example of when this proved beneficial for the company is when it agreed to provide HEMS clothing for around 100 medics at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. Nearly half of those medics were women, so AUK Protection made custom sizes for them.
Baumann says: “If a client orders 30 suits and we need one custom, I will just add it on without charging, because there is a marketing value for us. The nurses and doctors have been working in the industry for 20 years, and they write us emails saying they never had such a good fit before. That feedback alone is good for us, and that means they would recommend it to the next hospital. Those extra sizes pay off, we don’t have to make money on each and every piece.”
Like Lythe, Baumann reiterates that it is important for the flight suit to fit in order to look professional, but that for a long time, men and women were sizing up to avoid discomfort.
He adds that having four female sizes caters for a high percentage of the market, and that women who don’t fit those sizes can then have adjustments.
While the male suits do have a zip down the thigh, AUK Protection does not currently make suits that have a female comfort zip.
The company instead proposes a two-piece jacket and trouser set, with a zip that can connect the two pieces – but these are less efficient than one-piece suits for insulation.
Baumann says: “We haven’t done it yet, but we have discussed it a lot. In aerial work, I wouldn’t want to sit on a zipper for eight hours, so for now we don’t have it – but we discussed it, especially for the winter gear, as it’s a hassle to go to the bathroom in. We have two or three women in Greenland that I think would be the number one users for that, but still so very few that we haven’t been offering it.”
VIKING
VIKING produces protective clothing and equipment for many industries, including firefighting, commercial shipping, fishing, offshore wind, and oil and gas operations.
The company recently created its YouSafe Rotary J immersion suits with a women’s option, which includes the hip-to-hip zip and better fit that enhanced Lythe’s day to day duties as a pilot.
All of VIKING’s aviation equipment now has both female and unisex options, in addition to the offshore wind YouSafe Cyclone suit with a female option.
Heather McManus, Global Sales Manager – Aviation at VIKING, was involved in the design and production of the first female suits for passengers.
She says the decision to make them began when they heard stories of women wearing larger sizes and then using crotch straps to make their suits fit better just to be able to walk and board the aircraft.
The suits are designed to be wider in the hips, shorter in the body, and longer in the leg to fit the female form. By removing excess fabric, the suits became slightly safer.
McManus says: “It’s not safe to wear a suit that has too much buoyancy because if you need to escape the aircraft, then you’re potentially making it more difficult, because the suit is going to be inflated with air.”
Providing PPE for women isn’t without its challenges for VIKING. While certainly not the case for all women, many female pilots and industry professionals need smaller sizes, but for something like a lifejacket, decreasing the size requires problem-solving.
VIKING has added an extra small size to its lifejacket range, suitable for men and women.
“They’re meant to carry a lot of equipment, especially aircrew,” says McManus. “You’ve still got to try and have the same space, but on a smaller body, which can be quite difficult to be able to fit everything on. You might put a PLB (personal locator beacon) inside the bladder, so it frees up some space on the waistcoat part.”
The female immersion suits also cost slightly more to make, due to the zip incurring more materials and labour, and fabric wastage from how the suits are cut.
McManus is firm in saying that VIKING will not sell the suits for a higher price than the unisex option.
“You should never have to pay more just because you’re a female. For most women, each month costs us more than for a man. So, yes, that was a conscious decision. I don’t think anybody should say, ‘It costs us more, so it’s going to have to cost you more as the end user.’”
Looking to the future, VIKING intends to continue creating female versions of its products, starting with its marine equipment. McManus thinks that the high female workforce within VIKING is a driving factor behind its increased focus on PPE for women.
The researcher’s perspective – Addressing the gender bias in unisex PPE
Dr Debbie Janson is a former mechanical engineer turned Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath, teaching in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Centre for Digital, Manufacturing & Design.
For 20 years, Janson experienced uncomfortable and even painful PPE, specifically footwear, and gradually noticed that her male colleagues appeared to have fewer issues with their gear.
She decided to undertake a PhD to develop new materials for protective footwear, but her research led her down a path that held many more concerns.
The project grew from footwear to PPE in general, and then from women to anyone who wasn’t the “average white man”.
Janson firmly believes that unisex is a misconception, as it is generally a male fit. She mentions that often, manufacturers keep unisex PPE in both the male and unisex category on websites, but not in the female category, showing that it was never truly intended for women.
Challenging the status quo – Mobility and well-being risks in non-diverse PPE
Janson’s work showed that there were bigger concerns than comfort and looks: safety and belonging. She found that people wearing ill-fitting PPE might not perform as well due to restricted movement and noticed a potential difficulty in feeling at ease in the workplace.
She explains: “If you haven’t got appropriate PPE, there’s a good chance that you’re in an underrepresented group and potentially feeling that lack of sense of belonging. Then you’ll put on clothes that don’t fit you because they’re made for your male peers. The impostor syndrome hits harder.
“From the point of view of other people, you’re not dressed in a way that makes you look credible, with really long sleeves and a coat down to your knees. You don’t look the part, which makes you not feel the part, and other people don’t think that you’re the part either.”
On the positive side, Janson says that there is more female PPE out there than people think, and that often it doesn’t cost more, though it can be hard to find. However, in her opinion, a mark-up in price isn’t detrimental.
“If it costs 10 to 20 per cent more, is that really a big deal in terms of making that employee feel like they belong in the workplace, and facilitating them to do their job in a way that they feel professional and credible?” Janson asks.
The bigger picture – Manufacturing inclusive PPE for everyone
The question of responsibility is complex. Janson describes it as a “shifting triangle” whereby the end users consider their experience as normal and don’t speak out, the manufacturers don’t need to act because the end users aren’t pushing back, and the regulators don’t act because there is no pressure filtering down the chain.
There is something in the pipeline, however – a guide currently being drafted by the British Standards Institution called Guidance on the Provision and Procurement of Inclusive PPE.
This document would provide an “industry agnostic” overview of how PPE should be available in comfortable and safe forms for everyone.
Ultimately, the issue of non-diverse PPE concerns all industry professionals, but it is women’s voices that have set the diversification of PPE into motion.
Janson says: “There’s a broader issue here, and I think women bringing this into the limelight is going to make PPE more inclusive for everybody.
“Men maybe don’t feel they can speak up in the cultures that they’re in, because they don’t want to be singled out, they don’t want to be sent home if they haven’t got the right PPE.
“There are active campaigns now for women’s PPE, but there’s not so much on the non-average man’s PPE. It’s more about inclusive PPE than just women’s PPE.”
Zipping up – The demand for inclusive PPE and maternity flight suits within the rotorcraft industry
PPE is essential when it comes to keeping people alive, and clearly if someone has the drive to pursue their dream career, they’ll make anything work.
Still, there is a long road ahead if PPE is to become truly inclusive. Comfort zips for women cannot be a luxury, they’re a necessity. Actual unisex designs are rare, and when it comes to something as vital as PPE, a male suit disguised as a viable option for women is not good enough for safety, efficiency, or workplace wellbeing.
The industry must adapt to make every person feel that if their clothing or equipment is causing problems, they can speak out, and this can only grow from a combined effort by regulators, manufacturers, aviation companies, and workers themselves.
What’s next? Well, another problem quietly waits in the sidelines.
The UK CAA states that, for pregnant women, “licensed activities may continue until the end of the 26th week of gestation for pilots and the 34th week for ATCOs provided all remains well.”
Women in aviation are allowed to work while pregnant, or at least that’s what the legislation says. But apart from the US Navy’s provision of maternity flight suits for aircrew in 2021, I challenge you to find a maternity flight suit. Or adequate aviation maternity pay as a standard.
Without adequate PPE, how can a woman work while pregnant? Is this another iteration of how non-diverse PPE is a symptom of greater inequalities in the industry? A page of legislation means nothing when in reality the choice had already been taken away before the illusion of it was dangled from afar.
