Hongkonger Candy Wu Suk-fun has attended parent-teacher meetings of her two children with such regularity that other parents get the impression she is a full-time stay-at-home mother.

She became the airline’s first home-grown female captain in 2009 and continues to juggle her career and raising her daughters, aged 12 and 15, by being extremely conscientious with time management.

“As a mother, it is challenging. For example, sometimes after I land at 5am, I attend an 8am parents’ meeting at school. I also shop for groceries and take care of my mother,” she said.

Wu, 53, started as a pilot trainee and was among the first batch of Cathay cadets trained at the Flight Training Adelaide academy in 1994.

According to Cathay Group CEO Ronald Lam Siu-por, about 9 per cent of around 3,400 pilots are female. Of them, about 30 are female captains.