Captain Zoya Agarwal flies for Air India, and in January 2021 she commanded one of the most talked-about flights the airline has ever operated: San Francisco to Bengaluru, over the North Pole, with an all-woman cockpit crew. It was the kind of milestone that gets a headline for a day, but her career reads better than the headline suggests, and it started long before that flight.
At a glance
- Known for: commanding Air India's all-woman San Francisco to Bengaluru flight in January 2021
- Profession: airline captain, Air India
- From: Delhi
- Aircraft: Boeing 777
- Also credited with: being the youngest woman in India to fly a Boeing 777 (2013)
A dream she kept quiet about
By her own account she decided to become a pilot at around the age of eight. For years she didn't say so out loud. In an interview with Humans of Bombay she explained that a girl growing up in a lower-middle-class family in the 1990s was not expected to dream beyond her means, and pilot training was known to be expensive.
She told her parents once she had cleared Class 10. Her mother was in tears and her father worried about the cost. She went ahead anyway: science in Class 12, physics for her degree, and an aviation course on the side, paid for out of her own savings. For three years her day ran from a 6 a.m. college start to an afternoon class at the other end of the city, and she often got home around 10 at night with assignments still to finish.
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Career milestones
- 2013: credited as the youngest woman pilot in India to fly a Boeing 777.
- May 2020: picked as a co-pilot on Air India's first repatriation flight under the Vande Bharat Mission, which brought Indians home during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
- January 2021: captained the all-woman crew on the San Francisco to Bengaluru flight (details below).
- December 2021: flew Air India's first Boeing 777 route over the Hindu Kush mountains, which shortened flying time to North America.
- 2021: named a spokesperson for the United Nations' Generation Equality campaign.
- August 2022: honoured by the aviation museum at San Francisco International Airport for her flying career and her work encouraging women to enter aviation.
The San Francisco to Bengaluru flight
The flight was AI 176. It left San Francisco on a Saturday evening in January 2021 and reached Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport about 17 hours later, after crossing the North Pole on a route of roughly 16,000 kilometres. Air India described it as the longest commercial flight operated by it or any other Indian airline.
Four women made up the cockpit team: Captain Zoya Agarwal, Captain Papagari Thanmai, Captain Akansha Sonaware and Captain Shivani Manhas. Polar routes are demanding: crews plan for extreme cold, very few airports to divert to, and communication and navigation conditions that differ from a normal long-haul sector. Being trusted with that route mattered as much as the "all women" angle most reports led with.
What is publicly known about her personal life
Zoya keeps her private life out of the press. In the interviews and reports we checked there is no reliable public information about her date of birth, her family or a relationship, so we haven't listed any. If you have seen those details elsewhere, treat them with caution unless they come from her or from a named, credible source.
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Frequently asked questions
Who is Zoya Agarwal?
She is an Air India captain from Delhi who commanded the airline's January 2021 flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru with an all-woman flight crew.
What is Zoya Agarwal famous for?
Mainly for that record-setting polar flight. She is also credited as the youngest woman in India to fly a Boeing 777, a milestone from 2013.
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Which flight did she captain in 2021?
Air India flight AI 176, from San Francisco to Bengaluru, over the North Pole.
Where can I read more?
The sources below are a good start.
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