How one woman defied all odds to become Ghana’s first aircraft marshaller

When Felicia Edem Attipoe was working at the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) as a secretary in 1999, she had no plans of becoming an aircraft marshaller and for that matter, the first woman to earn that title in Ghana.

Her story is one marked with grits and grace, serving as a source of inspiration to many women not only in Africa but across the world.

According to a post she shared on her Facebook page, sighted by GhanaWeb, she left the country to study and came back home with a broken marriage.

She was lucky for another employment opportunity in the same company she worked in, as a secretary at the Marshallers’ office.

“I was then going through my divorce process in court. I come to work so confused and with a lot of pain and bitterness,” she said in the post,

It was during this tough time that she developed an interest in aircraft marshalling and convinced her superior for a slot to be part of a marshalling training.

Although she failed the exams on a few occasions due to her divorce court proceedings and petty trading, she sat the exams for the third time and finally passed out as Ghana’s first female aircraft marshaller.

She has since used her life story to encourage and inspire young women to always fight for their dreams, irrespective of the distractions and hurdles life throws at them.

In 2019, she was awarded the most inspiring woman in aviation at Ghana’s Most Inspiring Women’s Award.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the African University College of Communications and a Diploma in photography from Temple University in Japan

The work of an aircraft marshaller includes signaling, directing pilots, and positioning the plane, leading the aircraft to its parking stand or the runway.

They also give takeoff or landing instructions to aircraft, where limited take-off and landing time makes radio communication almost impossible.