There are 72,428 FAA-certified female pilots today, accounting for less than 10 percent of all pilots and just 8.5 percent of commercial pilots. It’s a male-dominated industry, no doubt, but the women represented in the skies are no shrinking violets. Just look to Teara Fraser, pilot and founder of Iskwew Air—Canada’s first Indigenous- and female-owned airline—and a winner in Travel + Leisure‘s 2025 Global Vision Awards.

“The naming of the airline was intentional,” Fraser says of her company’s title, which translates to “woman” in Cree, a language spoken by some Métis people, an Indigenous group that Fraser also belongs to. It symbolizes a reclamation of womanhood, matriarchal leadership, and language. “It was about disrupting existing systems and advocating for equity,” she adds.

The dream of captaining people to their destinations didn’t hit Fraser until later in life, during a fateful flight as a passenger soaring over Botswana’s Okavango Delta. “This was one of the most pivotal moments of my life,” Fraser says. “I returned to Canada and started my flight training. A year later, I had my pilot’s license.”

However, the leap from pilot to airline owner was no easy task. In 2018, she announced her plans to start the airline and got her operating license in October of 2019—just a few months before the global pandemic changed how we travel forever. But still, she persevered, ensuring her company offered equitable opportunities for everyone. She even founded the Lift Collective, a nonprofit that oversees the Give Them Wings program, which provides mentorship and flight training to young people.

“I wanted to show my daughter, who’s my eldest child, that she could be anything she wanted to be,” Fraser says. 

However, Fraser didn’t stop there; she has also made it her mission to support our global environment. Fraser’s airline offsets is emissions by buying credits from the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project, which converts areas used for logging into protected forests. It also happens to be the first carbon offset project used in Indigenous territories. 

But that’s not all. Fraser is also a board member of the Aerial Evolution Association of Canada, where she helps bridge the gap between “traditional air service and the sustainable technology of the future,” further working toward “decolonizing, decarbonizing, and transforming the aviation industry for a better future for humans, all of our relatives, and Mother Earth.”

She’s also a founding partner in the Canadian Advanced Air Mobility consortium, which aims to streamline research and development of both zero-emission aircraft and emergency service systems to better assist urban and rural communities.

“Culturally, we’re taught to do good with the knowledge and skills we’ve been blessed with,” Fraser says. She’s determined to make the skies a more inclusive space—and we’re all better off for it. 

“I always say that getting my wings gave me wings for everything else in my life,” Fraser says. “It gave me courage and inspiration, and taught me the value of hard work—and the feeling of triumph that comes from it.”