Affirmative action in the airlines?
 

Hello as a hispanic pilot in training, I was wondering if the airlines take a persons ethnicity into consideration to comply with affirmative action? I've never really put too much thought into it until recently while speaking to a senior CFI at my workplace. He was telling me that I had a better chance of getting hired later on because some companies want to meet quotas and tend to consider minorities for some postions because of it. I've always worked hard for everything I have achieved and like I said before, I never thought of how the airlines take affirmative action into play when hiring. I like to think I got a job because I worked my but off and made a great impression with my pilot skills not because im a mexican-american male.

I too am of a Mexican background and wondered the same thing. I actually read an article, and I am sorry to say I can't remember where, that talked about U.S. airline hiring practices and ethnicity. Basically, the article said that airline pilots as a whole represent the general population other than women. Basically, around 75% of pilots are White, while Blacks and Hispanics each represent around 10% of the airline pilots. The other 5% being other. Those numbers pretty much represent the ethnic make up of the country.

My class of 39 has two non-caucasians and three women.

Wouldn't this then be discrimination against all other ethnicities not considered? If anti-discrimination is the goal, why consider ethnicity at all? Affirmative action is simply discrimination in disquise in my opinion. To answer your question, some airlines take this into account more than others. One of the large majors has a reputation for giving preferrential hiring treatment to minorities and females. While most of us would agree that having a pilot pool that represents a cross section of America as a good thing, the goal should be to hire the best pilots regardless of race or gender.

Thank you CALCAPT. I just wish all pilots and or companies thought like that.

My past experience suggest you have a significant advantage over white Americans. I think it sucks personally because I don't believe that because 15% of the population is Hispanic, then 15% of the Pilots should be hispanic. This type of thinking promotes racism. Good luck in your careers.

I just want to make it clear that I do not support affirmative action...all I was saying was that airline pilots tend to represent the ethnic make up of the country which means that there are far less minorities then the majority...I take this as proof that affirmative action is not a big player...or else you would probably have a disproportional number of minority percentages of pilots to the actual ethnic make up.

Let me just add...that working along side people who are not the most qualified sucks and is a great way to kill a company.

I totally agree with you calcapt. If I got a job at an airline I would not want the other pilots thinking I must have gotten a break because im hispanic.

Affirmative Action is a plague on the airline industry and on America as well.

It creates an uneven playing field, and is most certainly NOT the American way.

If you want something, you work toward that goal, and finish the deal. You should never be placed in front of another individual who has worked harder or longer because you're a certain race, ethinicity or gender.

But of those 5 non-white males. What was the level of experience? Was it equal to the others?