Soaring to the top: News 12 highlights 'Sky Queen' during Women's History Month

Soaring to the top of the aviation industry required breaking glass ceilings for Millie Hernandez-Becker.

Nadia Galindo and Lee Danuff

Mar 20, 2023, 9:56 PM

Updated 647 days ago

Share:

News 12 is highlighting the rise of a Westchester CEO known locally as the Sky Queen in honor of Women's History Month. Soaring to the top of the aviation industry required breaking glass ceilings for Millie Hernandez-Becker.

"I got into the industry by accident. Really, I was raised to be a teacher," she says. 
An ad to work at a startup airline at LaGuardia Airport drove Hernandez-Becker to a new chapter.

Over the next four decades, she climbed the ladder in a male-dominated field.

"I advanced because every time an opportunity was given to me, I took it and I was afraid, but fear is different than risk," she says.
Hernandez-Becker was a flight attendant, ticket agent and she even bought her own plane.
"No one ever told me I couldn't do anything," she says. 
Now she's in aviation real estate as the CEO of SkyQueen Enterprises, based at the Westchester County Airport.
Her work takes her across the country, and she's had the opportunity to see other women taking leadership roles in aviation.