That is only true if you set the bar low. It’s the same reason that for other than NCAA mins, there is no bar at all at most colleges.


The “free lunch” effect could have skewed the number of applicants from the norm also, but we’ll never know.

We’re talking about zero time guys being admitted into a flight training program- how high does the bar need to be? Decent high school transcript with general STEM aptitude (most of us are not Rhodes scholars); a “good 4-day trip” personality, & passion for flying. Most of the specific skills & knowledge needed for the job they’ll learn in training.

I’d assume there are far more candidates who meet those criteria than slots available, but you seem to be suggesting that if the bar were raised higher, there would necessarily be more white males selected- why is that, exactly?

If the bar were raised higher and the applicant pool consisted of mostly white males, yes it is the expected outcome that the pool of accepted candidates would also be mostly white males.

But do we know that the applicant pool is mostly white males? And if so (seeing as how they account for only around 30% of the population) doesn’t that alone at least suggest a failure to access the full potential of the total workforce? I don’t claim to know all the answers, but these are the types of questions we (understandably) tend to allow ourselves not to ask when a system is unequal in our favor.

As to hiring standards, is it even wise to set the bar so high that you’re only taking the “cream off the top”? My opinion only, but a good airline pilot needs generally above average intelligence, a particular temperament, and a passion for the job. Yes, you could ratchet up the hiring requirements, but at some point, you’re just picking the flashiest resumes in search of the mythical “best of the best”. You have to ask whether someone is necessarily going to be the greatest front-line employee 20 years from now (not to mention the type of guy you want in your cockpit or flying your family around) because he aced his SATs or was an Ivy League-track student. Again, my opinion, but I don’t want the bar set so high that we get a bunch of uber-linear intellectual types who aren’t particularly invested in the job.

My contention is that there are a lot of guys who can do the job & do it well, so from there it becomes a simple question of whether there is enough value in a diversified workplace to make it a priority. The answer I’m hearing from most guys on these forums is no, it is not; which, if that’s the argument you want to make- fine.

For my part, I’m only pointing out that there is a big difference between prioritizing diversity among generally equally qualified candidates; and actively promoting under-qualified candidates in the name of diversity. I certainly hope the latter is not happening, although admittedly I don’t know for a fact that it’s not. But I do find it telling that so many here take diversified hiring statistics as hard proof that it necessarily is.

Just using this comment as an example... the indignation from some seems to suggest that we ("we" as in the historically typical airline pilot race/gender) are so accustomed to the ~90% white male nature of this industry that we can't look at something much closer to actual demographics without some feeling of injustice. The program has been given more exposure and advertising than anything pilot training related I've ever seen - articles in WSJ and mentions on the major news networks to name a few. It's casting the biggest of nets and doesn't require all of the typical connections to the industry that have historically shown many of us paths to the profession and the opportunity to pursue them.

I'd guess there are going to be various other percentage breakdowns in future classes but as hummingbear mentioned, a straight breakdown of a class in line with the demographics would be 30% white male. That's literally it. 30%. It seems this first class was far closer to that mark than a snapshot of literally every single newhire class ever in the history of US commercial aviation.

But hey, get angry.

No, which is why I said that the free lunch effect may have affected the demographics of what would be expected of the typical applicant pool. Logically, if your chances of admittance are decreased because admittance is based on non-competitive factors such as race or ethnicity, one would assume it would deter people in the majority from applying. Add in the factor of scholarships that you will not receive and I can certainly see that having an effect. And yes, I understand that you can apply for the women, Latino, black and Asian scholarships if you aren't in those groups, but it is a barrier nonetheless.

At the same time, this has not deterred white females as being the largest demographic of applicants to elite colleges and as a result, having the lowest admittance rates. The only reason we even have a sense of that is due to lawsuits over the years. The same would be required to ever get a real sense of how this small program at United is selecting applicants, so it's really just academic. I don't see a very small group of young pilots-to-be banding together to file a class action, so it's more likely we'll never know unless the company sees it in their best interest to showcase that they are selecting the best of the applicants.

Finally! Someone has figured it out and written it down for all to see.

“Free lunch effect”… 🙄

Again, white males make up around 30% of the country’s population, so why should they make up the majority of what you consider to be the “typical” applicant pool?

Far from a shocking revelation- I think the one thing supporters & opponents of the diversity initiative actually agree on is that there is a strong PR component to the company’s plan.

Free lunch effect isn't a pejorative, it's just the effect on advertising a benefit and how it tailors a response to that benefit. I can't answer why if white males comprise only 30% of the population, they are over-represented by interest in aviation. I could throw out a bunch of theories, but my Air Force military experience doesn't lend itself to guess what makes someone want to fly planes vs someone who doesn't. I thought I was going to be something entirely different when I joined, but 30 years later here I am.