Are the Airlines Placing Diversity Ahead of Competency in their Hiring?

We are seeing compromised safety standards and a recent rise in near disasters. Will airline passengers accept that their safety is not a top priority?

Image: United Airlines

United Airlines recently announced on Twitter that United Pride Flight 863 with their all LGBTQ+ crew had just completed a flight from San Francisco to Sydney. Looking at the comments below the statement, it was clear that many people were not amused.

“Remember when we hired people based on competency?”

“Do the passengers feel better now? I don’t.”

“Never flying United again”

“I would not get on that plane”

I spent fifteen minutes scrolling through the comments and the ones I featured above are the kinder of the bunch. United’s message was not received favorably, at least on Twitter.

Out of 43,400 views, the message received only 162 “likes” (three full days after the initial tweet). If there was any groundswell Twitter support for United and their all LGBTQ+ crew strategy, it wasn’t visible.

Two years ago, United announced that 50 percent of the 5,000 pilots trained in the next decade “would be women or people of color.” They went on to say “Our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day.” A similar pushback took place across most digital platforms.

The recent press announcement of United’s Pride Flight contained plenty of verbiage supportive of “an inclusive work environment while supporting the diverse communities we serve” and its “allowing customer-facing employees to represent themselves authentically through visible tattoos, nose piercings, hair, make-up and more.” Not once in the press announcement was there any mention of the retention of safety or experience standards. Maybe United thought that was a given and that the public would simply assume likewise.

The fact is, United’s customers aren’t going to wait for evidence of compromised safety; they will simply conclude that diversity is the primary driving factor in hiring. That’s enough for many people, particularly frequent business travelers who know the ropes, to find other travel options.

There are ways to diversify an airline’s workforce without reducing safety standards, so why doesn’t United (or any other airline) communicate this? Point out the safety and experience threshold and stress that ALL applicants must meet or exceed that threshold. Eventually, the airline will meet its diversity targets and the public will be confident in knowing that their safety has not been compromised. It’s that simple.

Why would the airline industry not support transparency that builds trust among their customer base? The industry is experiencing a credibility crisis given the recent mass cancelations and delays, near-misses and ground incidents as well as other growing problems. Trust-building opportunities, at this point, should not be ignored.

Perhaps this transparency would expose something the airlines would not wish to be known: They have, in fact, been lowering safety and experience standards. Post-pandemic staffing has been a problem, and a shortage of pilots in particular has presented a huge challenge. The answer? Reduce the mandatory training hours in the cockpit for new pilots and raise the mandatory retirement age for existing pilots.

Fortunately, this proposal was rejected by the FAA, with the pilots union commenting that the proposal “is not in the public interest and would adversely affect safety.”

Although there has not been a fatal crash involving a U.S. air carrier since 2009, the number of runway incursions and near-misses has compounded in recent years. There aren’t a lot of solid reasons for this scenario beyond new hires being held to lower standards and employment being determined by diversity goals instead of merit.

This is a recipe for disaster. The airline industry was historically known for “zero tolerance” of mistakes and putting public safety ahead of all other considerations. To have such a recent increase in these incidents is an indication of something terribly awry. And the flying public can sense this.

The airlines have already lowered hiring standards due to staff shortages. What is stopping them from lowering standards to meet diversity goals?

In a recent poll, Gallup claims that 7.2 percent of the U.S. population identifies as LGTBQ+. If we are to have fair employment representation of the LGTBQ+ community in our society, that’s fine. But to have 100 percent representation in a mission-critical transportation sector where experience and competence is crucial and a minor mistake can cost hundreds of lives…that is just reckless.

I think the flying public would have the same concerns with 100 percent representation of ANY identity group operating their aircraft, particularly if it was stressed that their identity was the primary reason for their on-board presence. It speaks more about the airline than it does its flight crew; United Airlines is doing a disservice to its customer base with this stunt.

By placing diversity ahead of merit in its staffing, United has placed its customers’ well-being last.