Maintenance branch employees at Air Canada.Supplied
Nordia King used to ensure passenger safety in the cabin as a flight attendant. Now, she maintains the aircraft itself as an aircraft maintenance engineer at Air Canada.
King moved to Canada from the United States in early 2020 and enrolled in a social work program to complement her degree in forensic psychology. But her heart wasn’t in it. When one of her professors encouraged her to enroll in the aviation maintenance program, it was the nudge King needed to overcome her hesitation.
“When I worked as a flight attendant, there was one woman who was an aircraft maintenance engineer. That gave me the idea that it was something I could do,” she says.
Getting there, however, was a climb.
A mother of two daughters, King gave birth to her third child, a son, in June 2020 and started her aviation studies in September. “My study time was three or four in the morning so I could be available for my kids. When I look back, I wonder how I did it.”
Her previous career as a flight attendant informs her current job. “I’m able to understand both sides. Even something as simple as repairing the coffee machine. If a passenger is angry that they can’t get a hot drink, it affects how the flight attendants are treated. My priority is to make the airplane safe but these small things make the flight a bit easier for the attendants,” says King.
Both on the job and in her personal time, one of King’s goals is to raise awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues. At Air Canada, she is a DEI Champion — a program that offers training courses to help the volunteer-led group effectively address those issues at the grassroots level.
Christianna Scott, director of diversity, equity and inclusion, credits the Champions with bringing the DEI message to a wider range of employees. “We have employees who work on the ramp or in the air. It’s harder to engage people when they are highly mobile,” she says.
The program started small with only 50 volunteers and has grown to over 120. Scott credits the success of the program to peer-to-peer training.
“People tend to trust a message that comes from a peer,” she says. “Last year, one of our Champions was responsible for training customer experience specialists who deal with our passengers at the airport. She saw an opportunity to provide a robust DEI training to this group. Today, her recommendations are part of our standard training for 5,000 employees.”
For Scott, a former labour and human rights lawyer, stepping into her current role in 2022 felt like the perfect fit. She was born in Ghana and moved to Québec when she was seven with her Canadian father and Ghanian mother.
“Topics around identity have always been very important to me,” she says. “After 17 years at Air Canada working on the litigation side, I wanted to work in an area that was proactive by identifying areas of improvement from an equity perspective. This job provides me with that opportunity to ensure everyone is treated in an equitable manner.”
Despite the challenges of her job on the ramp — like working 12-hour overnight shifts in the cold — King wants to be an inspiration for others. “I have two girls and I want them to see that anything is possible. You can switch careers. You can step outside of your comfort zone. You can do whatever you want because that’s what life is for, right?”
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