‘It was definitely overdue’: First Canadian hijabi-wearing flight attendant hopes to inspire others

“I didn’t realize how much there wasn’t a big representation of us, of Muslim women, specifically in Canada, so it was very exciting for me to learn that.”

The first hijab-wearing flight attendant working for a Canadian airline, 28-year-old Iman Sayed, said she always questioned if she would have been hired, had she started the job wearing the hijab.

The Montrealer has been a flight attendant for six years but only connected with her faith, few months ago.

“At the same time, I think it was definitely overdue. I believe this experience will definitely allow the airlines to see that we do require more representation in the sky, and I am very hopeful that in the future they’ll be hiring more people and more women specifically who look like me,” Sayed told OMNI Television.

Sayed said that she never saw the hijab as a barrier and hopes that her story will inspire other Muslim women to follow their dreams.

“I’ve been getting a lot of messages from other Muslim women who have been afraid to even consider that work,” she said. “So if I could inspire one person to be confident in their hijab whether in a public area or not, then my job here is done.”

“It’s always surprising when we hear in 2021 that there is still a first of something related to diversity, related to a hijabi women being a flight attendant in a major airline,” Executive Director for the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, Anne Marie Pham told OMNI Television.

“Organizations really need to take time to educate themselves to unlearn some of the false beliefs or assumptions that they have about people and relearn right and look at these diversity dimensions not as obstacles to organizations but as an asset to organizations,” Pham said.

“It does make me question sometimes if I would have been hired or even have the opportunity to become a flight attendant had I started off wearing the hijab,” Sayed continued.

“It takes a lot of bravery and it takes leadership to come to the table and actually foster a culture of inclusion, systems and policies that actually enable hiring supervisors for example that says ‘yes, I need to hire more people with the hijab, I need to hire more individuals from different cultural backgrounds who are not what we have hired in the past historically’,” Pham said.