Celebrity puts all-woman crew on the bridge

In a splashy first to highlight International Women's Day and the line's plans for a more diverse crew, Celebrity Cruises is assigning Celebrity Edge a crew of experienced female officers led by Capt. Kate McCue, one of the line's three female captains.

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, President and CEO of Celebrity, has made encouraging women to make careers in the trade, On her watch, the percentage of women in bridge positions has risen from 3% to 22%. The 27 women assigned to the cruise come from 17 different countries, and include the first West African woman to serve as a bridge officer.

Lutoff-Perlo says “The lovely thing for us is that we're the only [cruise line] that can do this because we've been focused on this for almost five years now. We have enough women across our entire brand where we can completely ‘man’ the bridge with women and we have women leaders in every aspect of our operation—even our chief of security is a woman, an Israeli woman.”