The Air Line Pilots Association has issued a statement defending the industry’s safety record after a White House edict to airlines requiring them to “certify” that they don’t use diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles in pilot hiring standards. As we reported earlier this week, the administration issued an operations specification ordering airlines to put in writing that they only hire the best pilots regardless of gender and ethnicity. It’s part of a general purge of DEI throughout the government started shortly after President Donald Trump took office 13 months ago. ALPA President Jason Ambrosi dismissed the impact of the move on flight safety in the statement, copied in its entirety below:
“All ALPA pilots are trained and evaluated to the same uncompromising standard regardless of race, gender, or background. A pilot’s identity has no bearing on their ability to safely operate an aircraft. What matters is training, experience, and qualification—and on that front, there are no shortcuts and no compromises. At ALPA, our work to advance aviation safety never stops, and as always, ALPA airline pilots remain ready to safely transport passengers and cargo to their destinations. Safety is, and always will be, our number one priority.”
Quotas based on ANY selection criteria other than merit and performance is discrimination IMHO. During my many years serving in the USAF, I saw many well qualified people passed over for promotion based upon someone with higher “merit” being available. ONLY the best moved forward. Even then, there were times when quotas colored the selection process. That’s why Sec. of War Hegseth had turned all that off explicitly. I want the best qualified person steering the aluminum tube carrying me from A to B.
The ALPA statement is laughable. There are many people who were passed over for selection because they weren’t the right sex and — to a lesser extent — race. Who’s on the ALPA Board … the same people running AOPA? (sic). Obfuscation by any other name is … um … obfuscation. Words are cheap.
Let the attacks on Larry begin …
Evidence?
Like most (maybe all) anti-DEI arguments, there is no objective evidence at all. At least, I haven’t seen any presented so far, other than subjective assumptions.
Objective Evidence: Conrad Jules Asta, Atlas Air Lines.
Objective Evidence: Kara Hultgreen, 1Lt, US Navy.
Plenty more out there, easy search.
By that flawed logic, every white male commercial or military pilot who crashed were “DEI” hires too.
A “minority” vying for the same job as me once stated “We are competing for different slots.” This person’s view was that even though we were competing for the same job, a certain number of “slots” had been set aside for non-white, non-male applicants, and therefore did not require the same grade on an entrance exam as the white males. Does that count as evidence?
The entire reason for DEI was to ensure the best was chosen for the task, by eliminating bias and discrimination.
Sixty years after the civil rights movement, and discrimination against people who aren’t white men still remains the primary obstacle to careers for quite many, at many levels.
That’s a lie.
You called it, GW. Now prove it.
I suspect that the attacks certainly will begin, but they will be based on emotion, not reason.
Three of my best pilot buddies were airline pilots. Each has multiple examples where ‘white men’ were passed over so as to achieve this or that hiring objective established by the hiring entity. BTW … I think giving preferential treatment to them in reverse is — likewise — wrong.
Perhaps a better operative word to use here is “favoritism” when used in the same sentence as meeting quotas. Assuming two aspirants are equal and meet minimum FAA qualification standards (equality), favoritism can — and often does — step in (quota). The Government — itself — established DEI standards — read quotas — and those are now being reversed is all. No one can convince me that efforts to meet those goals weren’t entering into the selection process. The Administration is noticeably filled with females … so they aren’t opposed to qualified people filling positions … just opposed to favoritism.
Women are about 7% of pilots overall yet are over 50% of the population. Why do you suppose that is? There’s no impediment stopping them from learning to fly. Many go on to advanced ratings and do accede to an airline cockpit. I know of one at a large airpark in Daytona who is the quintessential example of not only qualified but also vivacious. I’m certain she was picked because of that. No problemo, great. But if they’re then given preferential treatment because of quota requirements — spoken or unspoken — that’s where the rub comes from. That’s a very fine line to discern here.
“Women are about 7% of pilots overall yet are over 50% of the population. Why do you suppose that is? There’s no impediment stopping them from learning to fly.”
During the Mercury program, a group of 13 potential female astronauts were selected and went through the same extensive medical testing than their Mercury 7 male counterparts. At the end of all of it, the testing showed that in many cases, females would make better astronauts than males. But of course NASA wasn’t allowed to select any of them, so it went to the male Mercury 7 group.
It wasn’t until 1983 before there was a female astronaut who got to go to space, as a mission specialist. And it wasn’t until 1995 that there was a female astronaut pilot. In looking back to the Mercury 13 (some of whom were pilots), this clearly was not because there were that many fewer qualified female astronauts, but rather due to systemic sexism. Sure, eventually some made it, but not because a lack of qualifications or determination.
Like it or not, racism and sexism are real and prevalent. Simply pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t make the problem go away. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was just the most recent version of attempting to ensure that qualified minorities have an equal shot at being considered as do similarly-qualified non-minorities. The “quota” is only that there are enough minorities being considered for a job, not that there are an equal number being hired.
You are not wrong.
As a former military-turned-airline pilot who was laid off during the pandemic, here are some inconvenient truths:
1. The majority of pilots who got the axe were White, and it wasn’t even close. Very few, if any, of any other group were let go during this time.
2. Despite provisions for recall rights being clearly enumerated in our contract, hardly any of us were called back. In fact, when I inquired with my employer (American), they somehow had zero record of my ever being employed by them. I know others who reported the same thing. Convenient, right?
3. Our ‘union’, the extortionists known as the ALPA that we forcibly paid regular tribute to, took absolutely zero action on our part, despite the facts of the matter.
4. As all this happened, ALL the airlines went all-in on DEI.
Good thing I had an engineering education to fall back on.
To be explicitly clear, we were purged & erased. Simple as. And yes, a massive class-action lawsuit is in the works.
…and knowing good and well who they openly replaced a lot of us with (by way of lower standards), from a standpoint of safety alone, you won’t catch me flying commercial anytime soon.
Mirrors what my airline buddies told me, too, Brian. Thanks for providing a first-person example beyond my own.
Yeah, let’s go back to the good old days where white males were favored. Saw plenty of sub-par white guys hired and/or pushed up the line over well-qualified women and minorities. In fact, a lot more than the other way around. Oh, and the research data says so as well.
Research data? What are you talking about? Please provide a single example.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2024/04/17/new-research-reveals-resumes-with-black-names-experience-bias-in-the-hiring-process/
Way back in the ’70s as a USAF Captain at the AF Armament Laboratory, Armament Development and Test Center, I was assigned to a hiring board to select a new Chief Scientist. My boss, a Lt. Colonel, called me into his office for a briefing and told me that one of the candidates was a black man and that they really needed to hire a black man for the position.
I felt horrible about the whole thing but, after the interviews, it turned out that the black man was the best qualified for the job and we, the board, made him an offer. I don’t recall whether he accepted or not, but I felt like I needed a shower afterwards. I always wondered if my boss thought that I hired the man due to his race. I did not.
And as an add on to the ALPA statement, they just said the airlines trained them. And they probably did because the damage was done in the hiring process, which ALPA has nothing to do with. A safe statement noteworthy by what they didn’t say. Called gaslighting.
If I am going ‘under the knife’ I want the best surgeon available. I want the surgeon who earned the certificates and licenses through ability, hard work, and a desire to excel. I don’t care who this surgeon is or their country of origin or their ancestry. I want the best.
Just my opinion… and it should not be a surprise that I feel the same way about the left seat of an airline cockpit.
The “best surgeon available” would be the surgeon who graduated top of their class, so even the 2nd graduate would not meet your criteria.
Sorry, but your generation’s ‘One Race The Human Race’ war cry is null & void. DEI was [forcibly] tried, and it failed.
Cope, boomer.
Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in medical school?
A: Doctor.
Never mind, not worth it.
While the ALPA statement may be charming, ALPA is not a certificated air carrier, therefore they do not hold air carrier Operations Specifications and do not hire pilots for commercial passenger carrying operations. Not sure why ALPA was compelled to make this statement.
Congratulations to ALPA for standing up.
DOT had no data to support this decree, stating: “…allegations of airlines hiring based on race and sex remain.”
(https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/trumps-us-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-doubles-down-purging-dei-our-skies)
ALPA employs pilots?
Standing tall and singing in the shower is one thing – good on them for stating the obvious.
Question is, will the airlines stand tall and refuse to sign the new mandatory operations specification (OpSpec) and possibly be subject to a federal investigation from a powerful, rogue government?
That’s where you will hear the chirp of tires meeting the runway.
Messy bidness, this fightin’ systemic racism, misogyny, and unconscious bias is.
Try that with folks who got screwed by your DEI experiment, including those who have been killed in pursuit of it.
Cope.
This edict demonstrates a stunning level of ignorance/disingenuity in the White House. “DEI” is a policy that encourages agencies of the federal government (i.e. not your state’s highway patrol or local school system) to broaden the pool of applicants for federal jobs. It says nothing about the ratio of men to women (or LBGTQ, Latino, handicap, or birthplace, for that matter) who are actually hired. That ratio might indicate that perhaps your applicant net should be thrown wider, or that a serious evaluation of your selection criteria is in order. In other words, DEI is an anti-discrimination measure. Everyone in favor of discrimination in federal hiring based on anything other than demonstrated ability, please raise your hand and self-deport.
I’m old enough to remember when a similar federal mandate was issued in an attempt to make the allocation of resources available to school children more fair. I was thirteen when I met my first Black friends. We were thirteen and bussed out of our neighborhoods to a different school. And yes, there were quite a few adults incensed at the thought of such innocent miscegenation. But not in the White House.
Since Harriet Quimby, the number of women or other minorities that wanted to fly for a living faced far greater challenges getting a job doing it. DEI is simply a federal inducement to try harder to be fair.
Cope, boomeress.
Well said, Aviatrexx
‘Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.’ Lao Tzu
GL Rockwell saying “Cope, boomer” is not an argument, it is just cheap contempt. And Derek Vineyard’s “magic monkeys” remark is not debate, it is degrading language. If your position is solid, defend it with facts. Airline safety is built on standards, not insults.
Raf, I am not convinced that you are debating with carbon-based life forms. Could be bots….
Smelling more bots than usual in this thread….
Sorry, but I want the most experienced and qualified pilots, not some affirmative action hire.
Aviatrexx is correct. DEI mostly means widen the pool and stop shutting good people out early. It does not mean “hire unqualified pilots.”
Here’s the key point: after decades of modern aviation, nobody has produced public proof that DEI made flying less safe. If DEI was “unsafe,” we would see it in accident data, training bust rates, or enforcement trends. We do not.
And Reuters just made the obvious point out loud on this latest “merit-based” order: there’s no evidence of unqualified pilots being hired.
The safety gate is the same for everybody: training, checkrides, line checks, recurrent sims, medical standards. You either meet them or you do not.
So drop the unfounded accusations. This “merit-based” push is politics wearing a safety badge.
Every pilot, mechanic, instructor, inspector and controller has lived and been raised with principles and reason in the years before the Great Switch.
Learning, studying and observing, the ability to discriminate fear from evidence and science was shown, taught and ingrained in us all.
Then It came. Through the weaponizing of the ugly exposure of the worst in us, we made the switch from living in the knowledge of evidence, logic, reason and fairness to Pantophobia – fearing everything and everyone.
Will we come back from this and trust ourselves and each other again?
My rhetoric teacher in HS would be proud of all the new words I learn by reading AvBrief 😃 She told us to look up any word I didn’t understand or hadn’t ever heard before. Thanks.
YOU win the comments IMHO, Vayuwings.
Yeah, yeah, yeah … DEI caused the MOST qualified in the Public Health Service — Dr Rachel Levine — to be picked as THE number one candidate for the position is a perfect example of DEI working it’s magic leveling the playing field. Had ‘he’ cum ‘she’ not ‘switched sides,’ he’da never been picked. They want me to believe that he/she was the #1 candidate among the thousands of eligibles in the eight uniformed Services or 6,000 in the PHS … hogwash. Anyone who gets their plumbing rearranged is automatically suspect in MY book. And if they then proudly wear it on their sleeves … that’s even worse. What does being LGBTQ have to do with the medical profession? Anyone who believes otherwise should sign up a $5 chance of buying a bridge in New York I’d like to sell them. I should start a website cuz it appears a bunch of ’em inhabited this thread. I’ll be rich and will be able to buy the Caravan I want.
Beyond that baloney, who and where are the people who determine exactly what DEI category is being discriminated against and should somehow be given favoritism status in order to right the wrongs of times past. WHO? Where do they work? If everyone is equal, why do we have to categorize everyone into this or that group in the year 2026?
I’m of Polish ancestry. When is the Government gonna make National Polock history month? How come kids aren’t taught about Pulaski and Kościuszko. How many Polocks are airline captains? I think we’re being underrepresented and need some DEI “help.” Oh ALPA … are ya listening? And I’m tired of Polock jokes, too. I want those banned … I’m gonna start the NAAPP … National Association for the Advancement of Polish People. WAIT! We already have the Polish National Alliance (PNA) … how’s come they aren’t ranting and raving to level the playing field? Now that I think about it, how many here have ever heard of the PNA? IF only those waskully wepublicans hadn’t banned DEI, I’da had a chance. See the problem here? Rozumiesz?