Grounded, license cancelled, just before her takeoff as first woman pilot of Air India in 1988, she decided to soar higher

It was also what held her in good stead when years later she stood on the threshold of making history as the first woman pilot of Air India after finishing her pilot training at the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA)– and was grounded and her pilot’s licence cancelled.

“Aviation was always in my blood, thanks to my father’s air force career. I’d watch planes soar and wonder why girls weren’t allowed to fly them. He’d echo my frustration, saying, “The day will come.” That sparked a dream—to do something extraordinary, to be the first and the best in a field where women were yet to tread. The National Cadet Corps (NCC) fuelled that ambition. It transformed me—teaching me discipline, paratrooping, mountaineering, shooting and more, all at no cost. I participated in the Indo-Canadian Youth Exchange Programme, built homes for Dalits as a labourer, and lived with a Kerala family for three months, eating their food. Such experiences—were humbling and transformative,” she reminisces.

“Our value-based upbringing defied traditional gender norms. We weren’t raised in a ‘typical girl’ environment; instead, we were taught that anything a boy could do, we could—and should—do too. That determination, paired with my mother’s enabling spirit—she pursued her BEd after raising three kids and could fix anything from an iron to a meal—left an indelible mark on me,” says Singh.

In 1985, at 19, she became the first woman to command the NCC Guard of Honour for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. “After the ceremony, we had breakfast with him, and he remarked on my loud voice—a testament to the confidence NCC instilled.”

Her professional journey began in earnest when she enrolled at the IGRUA. “Thanks to my NCC achievements, including the PM Scholarship, 50 per cent of my training fees were covered. I excelled, becoming batch captain—a rare feat for a woman—and earned my private pilot licence.”

In 1988, she was selected as Air India’s first woman pilot, a milestone splashed across newspapers with headlines like “The Flying Maharani” and “From dancer to pilot” (Singh is a trained classical dancer).

But just before she could start, a just-introduced EEG test flagged a 1 per cent chance of dizziness at a certain altitude during lightning—an unprecedented excuse to ground a pilot.

“Despite no clinical evidence and a 1 per cent probability my licence was cancelled. I was devastated. It also meant I could not even join the only other airline that existed at the time- Indian Airlines.” recounts Singh. Again the media went into a tizzy alleging a bias against women, but Singh refused to go down that path. “They had selected me initially, hadn’t they? I decided I will not sit and cry but turn this misfortune around. With my parents’ backing, I moved to the US, earned new licences, and taught as a ground instructor. Ironically, Air India later rehired me—not as a pilot, but as a trainer.”

That twist opened a new chapter and she became India’s first female flight instructor, teaching pilots twice her age—including her husband! She rose through roles as the first DGCA-approved lady chief of flight safety, first lady accident investigator in India and the first to set up quality, safety, and environmental systems in an airline. In 2020 she became the first woman CEO of an Indian airline, Alliance Air.

As president of the Women Pilot Association, she has empowered women from socially and economically weaker sections, and if today India has the largest percentage of women pilots in the world, much is due to Singh’s endeavours. She now oversees strategic alignment across divisions.

Incidentally, the test that had grounded Singh was recently dropped from the list of medical test pilots need to undergo by the DGCA. “I shudder to think how many pilots after me may have been victims of this illogical test and lost their careers,” says Singh.

Harpreet had met her husband Captain Pushpinder Singh while at the IGRUA. He belonged to the inaugural batch of commercial pilot licence (CPL) trainees and has over the years distinguished himself as an exceptional achiever as the chief operating officer of Air India Express, launching the airline. He is an instructor on the Boeing 777 now. Their son Rishab Alap Singh, an engineer from Carnegie Mellon University, works with Amazon in Berlin while daughter Jasmine is a scriptwriter and director with works like the series Jubilee and the film Control to her credit.

While Singh has encountered numerous challenges through her professional journey, the one that stands out for her is the aftermath of the Air India Express accident in Bangalore. “As the emergency response director, I took charge of overseeing every detail. Fortunately, I had previously developed a pioneering volunteer programme in India, called Angels of Air India, that trained volunteers to handle post-accident scenarios, and it proved invaluable during this difficult crisis,” she says.

Another significant challenge came when she, as chief of flight safety, coordinated the Vande Bharat evacuation flights during the Covid pandemic, repatriating Indian citizens from over 180 destinations worldwide. Later, as CEO of Alliance Air, she faced the task of distributing Covid vaccines to tier-2 and tier-3 cities. “I made the bold decision to convert some aircraft into cargo planes, and with support from the government and DGCA, we launched outreach programmes to ensure vaccines reached those in need,” she says.

Over the years as she climbed the ladder in the aviation field, what also became a parallel identity was her evolution in the world of spirituality.

“My spiritual journey doesn’t have a single starting point—it evolved organically, nurtured by my family and amplified by life’s adversities. Losing my flying licence was a turning point. I found strength through faith in myself and the divine and immersed myself in spiritual texts, from the Guru Granth Sahib to the Bible, Gita, Quran, Buddhism, and Zen. Each adversity became an opportunity to deepen my connection to the universe. During Covid, I introduced voluntary morning meditations and yoga for the Alliance Air staff. These initiatives calmed fears, boosted energy, and fostered peace among employees. I founded HARPS (Har se Prem aur Seva), meaning ‘love and service for all’. What began with a handful of people grew into a universal prayer group, meditating daily and sending out positive vibrations,” says Singh.

From a barbed-wire scrape to breaking aviation’s glass ceilings to transforming lives through meditation, sky indeed has not been the limit for this overachiever.