Diversity Naysayers Make Labor Crisis Worse

One of the most interesting, frustrating, entertaining and occasionally frightening tasks of the modern-day editor is monitoring the comments on the stories we run. Most outlets have disabled comments because it's just too much damn work to filter out the mean, hateful and irrelevant missives that inevitably appear no matter what the topic. It must be all Trump's fault. Or wait, maybe it's Biden's.

Fortunately, we have a pretty reasonable bunch of commenters at AVweb who can stick to the topic and make good points. Often they're profoundly insightful and really give all of us paying attention something to think about.

And I have to give credit to our regular commenters for policing the section until one of us at AVweb can get in there and nuke the offensive, irrelevant and just plain stupid stuff that gets in there. We have a handy little "disapprove" button that instantly vanquishes those comments.

One of the dumbest threads to show up recently was an online conspiracy theory that gathered some steam after the dunking of a P-8 Poseidon in the ocean off Oahu last month. A couple of years ago, the Navy operated a flight in a P-8 with an all-female crew. It's been a common thing among airlines and military to pay lip service to increasing female and diverse community involvement in aviation by combing their rosters to find fully trained and competent female professionals and put them all together for a flight. I suppose it puts some attention on the deplorable participation rate of women, people of color and especially women of color in aviation. The flight decks and hangars of the nation do not look like most of the rest of America.

Back to the P-8 overrun, which on first glance looks like the natural result of a high and hot approach, long landing and wet runway. Someone, however, came across an archived story about the all-female flight two years earlier and wondered out loud whether an all-female crew was on the Hawaiian P-8. There's no evidence it was but the Navy doesn't often release the names of crew members because they have sensitive jobs and it's not something the public needs to know.

Well you know what happened next. Pretty soon the all-female crew was an indisputable fact and being used as a blunt instrument by those who believe that encouraging diversity is diluting the talent pool and therefore an accident waiting to happen. There's no point arguing with these folks so I just hit the "disapprove" button to nuke their comments and carry on.

It's easy for me to pay scant attention to the debate that rages in some of these guys' heads and find something better to do than argue with them. But there are those less lazy than me who want to actually do something about the racial and gender disconnect in aviation to make the industry stronger and more resilient. They believe that in those underrepresented communities lies the answer to help solve a massive labor shortage.

For decades, several groups have been trying to address gender diversity in particular. Amelia Earhart founded the Ninety-Nines in 1929 and Women in Aviation came along later. Both have awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships and busily promote aviation to women through conventions, social media and other communications forms. The participation rate by females in aviation remains stubbornly in the single digits.

In the bad old days, that could be attributed to the toxic culture of male-dominated aviation business. Women who stuck it out through training and fought their way into the flight deck or the maintenance hangar faces continuing harassment not only from male colleagues but from passengers as well. It's quite a lot different now, I think, but still the participation rate remains ridiculously low.

About 15 years ago, a Canadian ATP, instructor and aviation educator named Mireille Goyer came up with a different idea. She figured the reason girls don't dream of being pilots or mechanics is that they rarely see adult examples of them. Instead of giving scholarships to women who were already interested in aviation, she founded Women of Aviation Worldwide to bring in girls and women who had never even thought of an aviation career. Every March, the group runs events all over the world where girls and women go flying and meet women succeeding in a variety of aviation jobs. Over the years, thousands of mostly young women and girls have been given first-hand exposure to the career opportunities that are now most certainly open to them.

Former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker has embraced that concept and his new organization Breaking Down Barriers is targeting all underrepresented groups. If people don't see people who look like them on the flight deck or in the hangar they assume they are not welcome, he reasoned. Parker and his wife Gwen are going directly to those communities and targeting scholarships and incentives at those who show the interest and aptitude. His mission is nothing less than solving the labor crisis in aviation and he's fine with being aggressive about it.

He should have the contacts and access to sponsors to help but I wonder what his response will be to those who think he's weakening aviation safety. He didn't become CEO of the world's biggest airline by being a shrinking violet but it can be pretty rough out there for those who attract the attention of those who oppose diversity initiatives.

For a taste of what he might be in for, I'd encourage him to have a look at the comments on our story about his initiative. There is some support there and there are those who temper their disapproval by warning against passing over qualified white males to put somehow less qualified minorities and women in their place. But there are others where the flat out bias seethes under the civility of carefully chosen words. I hope he has his own version of  my handy "disapprove" button and isn't afraid to use it.

And I hope he doesn't give up, which is the goal of the anti-diversity crowd. The central theme of visible participation in aviation has been borne out in a lot of other fields like medicine and the professions where similar prejudice was common. At some point, in each of those fields, the critical mass reached a point where it couldn't be stopped by even the most strident nonsensical arguments. I think it's headed that way for aviation and it will happen sooner if we embrace the efforts to move it along.