Why stop at race and gender? What about physical or mental disabilities to show they truly are everyone’s airline?

I won’t fly United until they have the first Trans-minority-vision impaired-double digit IQ pilot. Only then will I consider them a viable airline and rejoice over their “inclusiveness”

Maybe United will charge extra if the pilot is white male. Give people options.

quote:

Originally posted by whanson_wi:
What do they do if they cannot find 2500 protected class that even want the job? Force them somehow?

In this case, I'm sure they'll have many that *think* they want to be pilots. When they see the hours, the stress, etc, how many will stick around?

The FAA will get a look at their training scores and walk out of the room. Que the cries that testing is discriminatory and filled with bias....

I wonder if any of their new pilots know how to fly.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by whanson_wi:
What do they do if they cannot find 2500 protected class that even want the job? Force them somehow?

In this case, I'm sure they'll have many that *think* they want to be pilots. When they see the hours, the stress, etc, how many will stick around?

The FAA will get a look at their training scores and walk out of the room. Que the cries that testing is discriminatory and filled with bias....

I remember back in the day when they started putting women in combat arms how the military declared that THE STANDARDS WILL NOT BE LOWERED!!

Yeah, I 'member when they said that...Funny how quickly that changed.

The FAA will lower standards. Guaranteed.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
I wonder if any of their new pilots know how to fly.

United will now train pilots from scratch, no flying experience required. There is a "tuition," though some will get a free ride. White males need not apply.

https://unitedaviate.com/aviat...ited-aviate-academy/

Lufthansa has a similar program:

https://lufthansa-aviation-tra...sa.com/learn-to-fly/

I remember back in my EMS days we had an elderly black woman mid 80's who had CHF/APE and was having difficulty breathing, some O2 Lasix,Morphine and Nitro in the field we turned her around and her breathing improved markedly, we brought her to a teaching hospital in our response area where she was followed one of the Chief Residents was a young black Doctor, who was top of his class an excellent ER Physician, this was at the start of the EEO/AA era, our patient was handed off, and about 10 minutes later the Chief Resident came over to us shaking his head, we were friendly as we saw him on multiple tours and after work. I can't believe what that woman said to me, he stated. We looked at him dumbfounded, and he said "Son, I'm sure your Grandma or Great Grandma is proud you've become a doctor, but don't take no offense could you get me one of them Jewish or Chinese Doctors." I was stunned and silent, just shook my head.

More things change more they stay the same.

Don't airplanes pretty much land themselves these days?

V.

I recall hearing that Ron Brown had a similar requirement for the crew that flew him. Didn't work out too well for him.

Diversity works great!

Gets everybody a fair shake.

Even Michael Jackson had a diverse doc and it turned out to... um... Nevermind.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Well, I'll be flying Southwest, IF I fly anywhere...

I live in Virginia, was born and raised in Idaho. The last 2 times I went back to Idaho, we DROVE! Why? Because I got tired of trying to deal with idiots who could not read, or figured their flight attendant uniform somehow made them special. I spent some 20 years of my career flying in the USA, Europe and North Africa. Snotty flight attendants were only part of the problem.

On our last flight, which was in 1st class due to upgrade based on so many frequent flyer miles, I had to go to the ticket counter and raise a little cane when the flight attendant refused to provide my wife and I adjoining seats. And adjoining seats were available.

Getting ready for the Rapture.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:

When you fly from Seatac To Anchorage Alaska, if you're lucky it'll be a clear day and daytime hours.

If both happens, you'll find that on the other end of the flight, toward Anchorage, you fly through a pass with mountains on both sides, and you'll frequently see sheep at the same elevation as the plane or higher.

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
Why stop at race and gender? What about physical or mental disabilities to show they truly are everyone’s airline?

I won’t fly United until they have the first Trans-minority-vision impaired-double digit IQ pilot. Only then will I consider them a viable airline and rejoice over their “inclusiveness”

In a 737 Max no less

Looking at the numbers, let's work this out:

50% of new pilots will be white men. That is significantly higher than population parity.

The remaining 50% will be women or people of color. So that means maybe 25% white women, and 25% minorities. Now lets remember that United has lots of flights to Asia and code-shares on Star Alliance flights by Air China, Asiana (Korea), and ANA (Japan). So that means they might want pilots that speak those languages and given the number of routes, that might be like 10-15%.

In some ways this is starting to look like making a big woke deal about nothing. Notice they didn't say how many black or other minorities just "people of color" which now includes Asians, whereas in the past it didn't really.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Maybe United will charge extra if the pilot is white male. Give people options.

I don't give two shits about their melanin level, what's between their legs, or any other immutable characteristics. I would pay more to know they were not a token hire and earned the job. That means going forward, I won't be able to fly United because I'll have no idea if I have a pilot who earned their job or got it because they just need one more female Iraqi to meet quota.

Lefty Sig the problem with what you are saying is a simple one. It surmises that the general population is the pool of “qualified” candidates, ie everyone from barely makes the minimum standard up to astronauts. This group doesn’t look anything like the general population. At all. It looks a lot like me. White and male. It’s the overwhelming demographic. Why? I could guess but I will leave it up to everyone else to come up with their own conclusions and research.

So to your point. 50% of the next new hire class will be white males. Then they will bypass wildly more qualified candidates to get the proper “mix” of ethnicities, orientations, genders, or no genders etc. Problem is some of those candidates are very well qualified and hiring them is no issue. Then the pool gets real shallow. You start bypassing much much much better qualified candidates for those that meet your criteria.

Make no doubt, there aren’t two buttons up there, land and fly. I laugh dutifully every time my buddies make that joke but the reality is once your family steps foot in that aircraft you want the two best people up there. You want the hiring process to redact names, genders, orientations, skin color and just be the finest smartest safest aviators your airline ticket can buy. Like your life depended on it. ‘Cause it does.

United Airlines has always been an affirmative action airline. This isn't new.

Decades ago, being a white male applying to United would require 5,000 hours or more of experience, while being female or black would require under 1,000. Consequently, United had a disproportionately higher number of female and ethnic or minority senior pilots.

Presently United plans to hire 10,000 pilots in the next ten years, half of whom will be female or minority.

This doesn't mean women or minorities can't fly, make good judgements, or command. It just means preferential treatment.

The public has long been unaware that a number of airlines hired pilots based on them buying their training. That meant that for airlines like the Delta connection, Comair, the pilots weren't the best that the airline could hire, but only those that bought their jobs. That practice continues in various forms, with various airlines, though it's been winnowed down, somewhat.

It's no surprise that practices like United's go on. It's been standard for decades. Not news in the least. It can have ramifications when those hired are not the best qualfied for the job. It's not unique to United, and I've flown with more than a few pilots over the years who really shouldn't have been there. I know a young lady who, just a year ago, was given nearly two hundred hours of initial operating experience, which is line training under the supervision of a check airman, before they're released to the line to fly as a qualified pilot in that aircraft. She was eventually fired, but anyone male would have been fired long, long before that, and they did everything they could to push her through the program. It wasn't at United.

She's in a 747 now, at a different operator.

Not surprising, at all.

quote:

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:
Don't airplanes pretty much land themselves these days?

V.

No.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Maybe United will charge extra if the pilot is white male. Give people options.

I don't give two shits about their melanin level, what's between their legs, or any other immutable characteristics. I would pay more to know they were not a token hire and earned the job. That means going forward, I won't be able to fly United because I'll have no idea if I have a pilot who earned their job or got it because they just need one more female Iraqi to meet quota.

Around 34 years ago, not long after I got my license, I met an early forties gentleman was happened to be a United 747 captain. He was abundantly clear that getting to that exalted station so young was largely due to his (rather dark) skin color. He seemed like a nice guy, and from all indications did a fine job commanding the crew and flying the airplane. He was clear though, and not at all bothered, that his opportunity to be in that slot at that young age was due to his race.

This stuff has been going on for a *long* time. United is just virtue signaling more about it these days.

As a pilot and a CFI, my reaction is, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Doesn’t matter to me anyway. With all the COVID baloney you won’t catch me on an airline. It may take a couple (long) days to get across the country in the Travel Air, but there will be no mask BS and no TSA.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
I remember back in my EMS days we had an elderly black woman mid 80's who had CHF/APE and was having difficulty breathing, some O2 Lasix,Morphine and Nitro in the field we turned her around and her breathing improved markedly, we brought her to a teaching hospital in our response area where she was followed one of the Chief Residents was a young black Doctor, who was top of his class an excellent ER Physician, this was at the start of the EEO/AA era, our patient was handed off, and about 10 minutes later the Chief Resident came over to us shaking his head, we were friendly as we saw him on multiple tours and after work. I can't believe what that woman said to me, he stated. We looked at him dumbfounded, and he said "Son, I'm sure your Grandma or Great Grandma is proud you've become a doctor, but don't take no offense could you get me one of them Jewish or Chinese Doctors." I was stunned and silent, just shook my head.

More things change more they stay the same.

That reminds me of the Archie Bunker episode where Archie needed a lawyer. The lawyer shows up and has an Irish name. Archie throws him out of the house saying "I don't want no Mick lawyer. Go back and tell them to send me a Jew!"

I need to rewatch those


Bruce