Children often follow in their parents’ footsteps, but Ashley Delhotal ’20 is following her mom’s flight path.

Suzanne Delhotal was a commercial pilot who first put her daughter in the pilot’s seat when she was just 15 years old. “We would always joke that I’d get my pilot’s license before my driver’s license,” Ashley Delhotal said.

Wide-ranging interests caused Delhotal to reroute her career plans early in life. She first wanted to explore work in health care. Then she majored in communication studies at Illinois State and landed a job as an account executive for a media company. 

But once again, she took a detour. 

“I started taking flying lessons again as a hobby,” Delhotal said. “Every other day after work, I was going to flight school. Then, one day after work, I was sitting in the parking lot, and I thought, ‘Why am I not doing this as a job?’”  

Delhotal passed her Federal Aviation Administration practical test to earn her private pilot’s license. Her first passenger was her mother. Three days later, she quit her job and enrolled in flight school to earn a commercial license. 

“I knew if I didn’t do this now, I was never going to,” Delhotal said. “It was just going to be a different excuse each time, and I didn’t want to get 10 years down the road and wonder why I didn’t take this chance.”  

A couple short years later, Delhotal is earning her wings, piloting smaller planes on regional flights. She splits her time between Minnesota and Texas. Some days, she has scheduled flights. Other days, she’s on “airport reserve,” at the ready in case there’s a delay or a pilot is sick. 

Her Illinois State degree comes in handy. “Whenever I tell someone in the aviation field that I got my degree in communication, they tell me how beneficial that is,” Delhotal said. “When I’m flying, I’m spending hours with my captain and the crew, and I have to be able to communicate with them.”

Delhotal hopes to one day pilot bigger planes on longer flights. For now, she’s just ready to see where her next flight takes her.