Honoring Bessie Coleman, American Crews A Flight With All Black Women

This week, American Airlines operated a flight out of Dallas crewed entirely by Black women, including pilots, flight attendants, cargo handlers and maintenance technicians. The flight was in honor of the 100^th anniversary (plus one year due to COVID) of aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman receiving her pilot’s certificate, the first, ever, for a Black woman. Coleman’s great niece Gigi Coleman was on board the flight, hosted by the airline.

According to American, Black women currently represent less than 1 percent of personnel at all levels of the commercial airline industry, a disparity the airline hopes to alleviate.

Born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892, Coleman left the cotton fields of Oklahoma at age 23 to join her two older brothers in Chicago where one of them, a World War I combat veteran, goaded her with tales of French women who had learned to fly airplanes. She took French lessons and traveled to Europe, where she earned her international pilot's license in June 1921, awarded by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. She used her influence in the following years to encourage other Black Americans to fly—boycotting airshows at locations that would not admit African Americans. She was killed in 1926 when she fell from another pilot’s Curtiss JN1 “Jenny” while preparing it for an airshow. It was found that a loose wrench jammed the controls, causing the pilot (who was also killed) to lose control.

Gigi Coleman told the airline, "I am grateful for American Airlines to give us this opportunity to highlight my great aunt's accomplishments in the field of aviation."