We’re not advocating for reparations here. In fact, we’re discussing individuals that have received the required training and acquired the necessary experience to meet the minimums as defined by the FAA and per individual company policy. This hiring cycle is such that every company is hiring at the low end of their experience requirements, but it only seems to be a problem if the beneficiary is a person of color. Although the overwhelming majority of those who will benefit from these hiring conditions and policies will indeed, be NON-MINORITIES. No one is being left behind, if you can’t get hired in these times…it’s you.

 

Yep

And yep.

 

You are correct. I’m a white guy and it simply appalls me that I work with people who think and feel this way .It’s down right disgusting. Hopefully UA will continue to hire every qualified minority they can . Not just african Americans, but Latinos , Turkish ,women ,or who ever they can find. We need a more diverse pilot group that’s for sure. Who wants to work with these types of people for the rest of their careers? I sure as hell don’t.

 

Amen . Hopefully you can help some if your brothers understand that.

 

I agree. If these guys are so against the companies hiring practices,why don’t they just quit and go somewhere else where things might end up being a shade lighter ,more to their liking.Maybe that’s what the company wants,get rid of these good old boys . They are not going to change their policies because some of you guys of the Caucasian persuasion don’t agree with it . Just quit already . Now I see why we don’t an industry leading contract.These guys are concerned about someone of color or a different ethnicity getting a job instead of the important issues. As a relatively new guy ,I didn’t expect this at UA.I thought you guys were above all of this,boy was I wrong. Needless to say I’m disappointed.

 

I’ll grant you there is an element of character in those examples, but my point was they are not guaranteed indicators. With all due respect, it’s not that hard to not get kicked out of the military. I’ve know former military guys that were individuals of the highest caliber and I’ve known some that were, well, not. Ditto that with higher education. Yes, it can demonstrate focus & determination. But in this country especially, it can be just as much an indicator of economic status- applicant A may stand out over applicant B merely because he had $100K to spend on an academic pursuit unrelated to his career goals that applicant B did not. To be clear, I’m ok with giving hiring points to these groups, but in either case, you are not necessarily choosing a better pilot.

You see, being a good pilot is not a quantifiable attribute like height where we can just rank people objectively from 1-15,000 & pick the top 200 every month. (What I like to call the fallacy of the “most qualified candidate”.) What hiring departments end up doing, then, is using probability indicators to make their best guesses. Some indicators are better than others (how well does your ability to tell a good TMAAT story really predict your ability to lead a team or make a command decision? Hogan, anyone?) & some choices definitely display the weakness of the process; but the reality is we’ve never been able to hire only the best & we never will. It takes humility to accept that you were not the best or the most qualified applicant. You were merely good enough & someone took a chance on you; and your quality as an airline pilot has had at least as much to do with the decisions you’ve made after that moment as the ones that led up to it.

From there, the question becomes is there any inherent value in diversity? Some will honestly answer no to this question & if I’m being fair, I can’t objectively say they’re wrong. Personally, I look at it like the DiSC training we do. We don’t want an airline of all one personality type or the other because we’d be compounding our common weak spots & missing out on the strengths each group has to offer. I think there’s value in having a team with more diverse backgrounds & viewpoints as long as the team members learn to capitalize on that diversity & listen to & learn from each other. (This thread suggests we have a long way to go.)

That’s why I’m okay with making efforts (within the limits of good training & evaluation standards) to increase the diversity of our flight decks. There is no objectively best choice so we select from among our most promising options the team that has the highest potential for success.

 

I was referring to having military experience or getting a masters in anything. Unless I'm missing the point of just about all of your posts above as they seem to be all over the place. In any profession, hiring anyone on the basis of things other than their merits does nothing for them or their profession. This is just really academic, though, if you can fog a mirror, have an ATP and a class I, your chances to be hired are excellent regardless of some immutable trait you may have. Unless you are talking about gender, which you can change at will.

 

This is the crux of the differing views of the entire conversation. And it’s one that IMO the opposing sides are not likely to agree on.

The problem, IMO, has nothing to do with the color of the skin of the beneficiary. The problem has everything to do with preferring one skin tone over another at the expense of every other qualifier (including economic background).

I’m sure that there are pilots out there that have skin color preferences. But the percentages from both sides are likely not to be agreed upon. IMO, it’s a low single digit number. But I could see a world where one particular outspoken poster here believes that somewhere around 50% of pilots harbor untoward racist thoughts toward other skin colors (And 100% of Fox News watchers). I would say that is not a good faith belief/argument, but that’s just me.

I remember a few years back where there was a poll taken about how many unarmed black people were killed by police in the US. One political demographic believed the number was in the thousands. The other believed it was degrees of magnitude less. I think this indicates very different starting points for both sides. And one side is more rooted in reality than the other. If either side will not give an inch, progress will be slow and painful. There’s probably similar polls about COVID for what it’s worth.

Disparity in views about race by political leanings

TLDR - To say that pilots only have a problem when certain skin colors are advanced ahead of others is a misrepresentation of the argument.

I’ll give the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not that is intentional.

 

My apologies for making an assumption as to which two attributes you were referring to. That said, I disagree with your assertion. I have a masters degree, it says nothing about my pilot abilities, I also do not believe it is an indicator of future success or failure with regard to flying in the 121 environment.

You’re right, hiring should be based on merit and merit alone. My issue is the implication that if you’re a person of color then your opportunity must have been given, not earned.

As you stated, this is all academic. Anyone with a pulse and an ATP can get hired right now…90+ percent of those pulses will belong to a non-minority so stay calm people. Besides, it’s not DEI policies that are going to take your jobs, it’s computers.

 

I don't know, but somebody has been going through and selectively deleting comments after they've already been approved by mods for posting. Just like when Twitter was over-controlled, this thread is tainted.