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June 21, 2025 - The Matt Walsh Show

21:28

Proof For Your Liberal Friend: DEI Is Destroying The Air Travel Industry

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have infested the air travel industry. Show this podcast to your liberal friend as proof. - - - Today’s Sponsor: PDS Debt - You’re 30 seconds away from being debt-free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/walsh - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy

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	We require women and people of color to be involved in the interview.
	I have never seen a black woman fly a plane.
	With fewer than 1% of pilots and women of color.
	In their various public statements and press releases, United Airlines has made it very clear that they are mainly interested in hiring pilots on the basis of skin color and gender rather than competence.
	In fact, they participated in a Vice documentary back in 2022, United did, about their DEI initiatives.
	Watch.
	So we are in a plane right now about to take off with a student from United's new ABA Academy.
	I'm a bit nervous, but let's do this.
	PureFoy is training to become a pilot with United Airlines, which became the first major airline to launch its own flight school at the beginning of this year.
	But United is making another push.
	It said half of its recruits are going to be women or people of color.
	A pretty ambitious goal for airline pilots who are 93% white and 95% male.
	Black women make up less than 1% of the pilot industry.
	I have a confession, guys.
	I have never seen a black woman fly a plane.
	What made you want to become a pilot?
	So I was a flight attendant for three years on a major U.S. airline.
	And absolutely loved it.
	So, a couple years ago, United decided that 50% of its new pilot recruits are going to be women or people of color, and they're promoting flight attendants to make that happen.
	Later on in that Vice documentary, it suggested that the point of this initiative is to alleviate the pilot shortage.
	Well, how is that going?
	A few days ago, the conservative commentator Ashley St. Clair posed a few questions to United based on some information that she had received, and here's what she wrote.
	Quote, That's the question she posed, again, based on insider information that she had received.
	Now, United didn't reply, which you may have noticed is something of a pattern.
	No one thinks we deserve to know anything about what's going on in the cockpits of the planes that we are flying in.
	You're just supposed to assume that everything's fine and that the flight attendants are transforming into master pilots at United's training academy.
	But the more you look into the specifics of United's diversity initiatives, the It turns out that United partners with several historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, as a way of recruiting pilots.
	One of the popular statistics-focused accounts on X, which uses the name IO, noticed that two of the schools that United has decided to team up with, which is Delaware State and Elizabeth City State University, are, quote, in the bottom 2% of all undergraduate institutions in the United States.
	The bottom 2% is where they're finding their pilots.
	Elizabeth State, the account noted, quote, That's a pretty sobering reality, especially if you plan on flying United anytime soon.
	Now, to be fair to United, they don't just recruit from HBCUs with no standards.
	As a writer who goes by the pseudonym Peachy Keenan found, United also recruits, From an organization called Sisters of the Skies.
	Yes, that is an organization that sends pilots to United Airlines.
	And their acronym is literally SOS.
	At least you can rest assured that they have a sense of humor at United as your plane is plummeting to the ground.
	Maybe that will give you a little bit of a laugh.
	And it gets better.
	Watch.
	Jada Williamson's always dreamed of sitting in the cockpit and calling the shots.
	What I like about flying is But that dream of a career in aviation is a rare one for black girls to accomplish, with fewer than 1% of pilots women of color.
	It was tough, I won't lie, because there was no one that looked like me.
	Now Captain Teresa Claiborne is part of a group of trailblazing black women pilots hoping to increase those numbers.
	We believe if they see it, they can be it.
	She was the first black female pilot in the U.S. Air Force and is president of Sisters of the Skies.
	She is now a United Airlines pilot.
	Why do you think more black women aren't becoming pilots?
	It's extremely expensive.
	I mean, it takes upwards of $100,000 to get your licensing to fly.
	So if our young ladies are not seeing it, if their parents don't have the funding for it, then it's not going to happen.
	Well, that's inspirational.
	If they can see it, they can be it.
	That's the kind of thing.
	If you're flying a plane, that's That's the qualification that they fall into, that they saw it and they became it.
	Now, again, this is an organization that's training the pilots that are flying commercial aircraft.
	And this isn't training, really.
	It's like a kindergarten classroom with these vapid self-help slogans and inspirational slogans.
	At no point are these people concerned about safety or competence.
	They want to put black women in the cockpit because they want to inspire more black women.
	And that makes them feel good.
	Not because they think they're getting smarter or better pilots.
	Because if you want to get smarter or better pilots, then that's all you're concerned with.
	You just go looking for pilots who fit these qualifications regardless of what they look like.
	If they happen to be a black woman, then great.
	If it ends up that you have no black women pilots, then that is also great, because if you're just And this is not just some PR stunt.
	United is actually falling through on this.
	According to United's latest corporate diversity report, of the 51 students that graduated from United's first class of pilots, quote, nearly 80% were women or people of color.
	So they vastly exceeded their target of 50%.
	And you can just decide for yourself whether they got to that 80% figure.
	Because it just so happened that almost all the most qualified people were women or people of color.
	If you believe that, then fine.
	They've almost completely eliminated white men in their training classes.
	And we're led to believe that this is progress.
	Meanwhile, pay no attention to the planes plummeting towards the ocean or smashing into the runway, which is happening right now.
	To be clear, this is a problem that extends far beyond United Airlines.
	I mean, they're maybe the most vocal about their DEI practices, but every airline does.
	A few years ago, in February of 2019, an Amazon Air cargo plane, a Boeing 767 operated by a contractor called Atlas Air, plummeted into the Trinity Bay near Houston.
	Now, what was the reason for that crash?
	Well, the first officer, Conrad Aska, accidentally pressed the button, giving the plane a massive jolt and thrust, which pitched the nose up.
	And instead of reacting calmly to the situation, as You know, trained, good pilots are supposed to do.
	He panicked, and he forced the control column all the way down.
	The plane broke through the clouds and disintegrated on impact with the water.
	Now, Conrad Aska never should have been flying that plane.
	Prior to joining Atlas Air and Amazon, he had worked for seven different airlines where he developed a reputation for pressing random buttons in emergencies.
	He would always panic in the simulator and just lose all situational awareness and start But airlines kept putting him in the cockpit anyway.
	And that's why, in its final report on the crash, the NTSB cited, quote, Now what explains those systemic deficiencies?
	Well, we can't say for sure.
	We do know that Conrad Aska was born in the Caribbean nation of Antigua.
	He was a black man, which certainly checks some diversity boxes.
	And we also know that Atlas Air's website is full of platitudes about the importance of hiring candidates based on certain characteristics like their race and gender.
	So, we can come to some unauthorized theories here about why Conrad Aska was flying that plane.
	And none of them are very encouraging.
	This is not to single out Amazon or United or Atlas.
	This kind of diversity hiring is endemic in the aviation industry.
	Keenan says that she's received several messages from pilots warning her of this danger in recent days.
	So here's one anonymous message that she posted.
	Every airline has an informal pilot assignment program that makes sure their unfireable DEI problem children are always paired with adult supervision.
	These programs are maintained by aging boomers who are immune to the Kool-Aid.
	As these guys retire, every flight will be a roll of the dice.
	I remember back, we just talked about that flight that almost crashed into the ocean, and you had the one person who didn't know what they were doing and pressed the wrong button, and then the other guy that's trying to figure out.
	Is that one of those situations?
	Was this a babysitting mission?
	We don't know.
	This rampant DEI mandate doesn't just extend to airlines either.
	A few weeks ago on the show, when I predicted that we're due for a major air disaster soon, I talked mainly about DEI-based hiring and air traffic control.
	There's also a push to diversify the ranks of companies that manufacture and install various airline parts.
	And that includes companies like Spirit Aerosystems, which is no relation to Spirit Airlines, which manufactured that door that blew out on the Alaska Airlines flight over Portland the other day.
	Like United and Atlas Air, Spirit Aerosystems' website is full of DEI propaganda.
	In fact, just days before the door blew out on the plane, Spirit executives were posting eagerly on LinkedIn about their next big diversity event.
	Meanwhile, the company knew they had more serious problems.
	Shortly before the door fell off of a passenger plane mid-flight, Spirit Air Systems was hit with a class action lawsuit in federal court.
	And in the lawsuit, investors alleged that In one instance, the lawsuit alleged, quote, auditors repeatedly found torque wrenches in mechanics toolboxes that were not properly calibrated.
	This was a potentially serious problem as a torque wrench that is out of calibration may not torque fasteners to the correct levels, resulting in over-tightening or under-tightening that could threaten the structural integrity of the parts in question.
	But the mechanics didn't want to comply with the audit.
	According to the lawsuit, quote, some mechanics would not even let auditors take such out-of-calibration tools, locking toolboxes or yanking them back out of the auditor's hands to prevent the audit.
	Now, obviously, these accusations are even remotely true.
	They reveal some very concerning problems at a company that makes critical components for the planes that you are flying in.
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	Moving on to this, Fox News says the Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website.
	The FAA's website states, Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.
	They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.
	The FAA's website shows the agency's guidelines on diversity and hiring were last updated on March 23, 2022.
	So this is part of their diversity efforts is to get in people with disabilities.
	Now, in fairness, just so that we don't engage in any clickbait hyperbole here, this doesn't mean that United Airlines or Southwest is going to go and hire a blind, mentally disabled dwarf to be a commercial pilot.
	Now, I wouldn't...
	There are a lot of other jobs in the airline industry generally, a lot of other jobs in the FAA.
	And people who defend this policy, or any DEI policy, will argue that they still have the same hiring standards in place that they always have.
	So if they hire somebody with a physical disability or a psychiatric problem, that person is still going to have to pass all the same tests and demonstrate his fitness in the same way as anybody else.
	Which means that if they get the job, then they're qualified.
	And that's the claim, right?
	That's the DEI defense.
	And in theory, that could be true in some cases.
	Like, if there's a job filing paperwork or whatever at the FAA office, there's no reason why somebody who's hearing impaired couldn't be perfectly qualified to do that job.
	So in theory, someone who happens to fulfill a DEI quota, Doesn't need to be unqualified, in theory.
	But if that's all that was happening, right, if they were just letting anybody apply and then hiring the best of that crop, then you wouldn't need DEI, because that was already the case.
	Okay?
	But, like, I'm pretty sure that prior to this DEI standard being put up on the website or updated in 2022, Prior to that, you could be a hearing impaired person and get a job filing paperwork at the FAA or whatever.
	I mean, that was already the case.
	So when you add in DEI, you're adding in something extra.
	And what are you adding in?
	Well, the moment you say, we need to get more of this sort of person into these positions, while you're looking at a particular demographic, whether it's disabled, whether it's You're not saying, we need more qualified people.
	You're saying we need more of those people.
	And even if you're saying we need the most qualified of those people into this position, even if that's what you're saying, which even that is not actually...
	That would still be terrible.
	That would be better than what they're actually doing.
	But the moment you do that, And if you want more of that demographic, the standards are going to get lowered.
	Because with the standards up here, you had, you know, the standards were up here, you had X number of people in your favorite demographic.
	So if you want to get even more, then that means the standards are going down here.
	And it's insane.
	It's insane on many levels.
	It's especially insane because, to begin with, if you're looking at the airline industry and you say, well, we have a minority of women or we have a minority of black people or we have a minority of disabled people, that's not a problem.
	Like, why is that a problem?
	If the ranks are full of people who are qualified, And few of the qualified people happen to be female or black or whatever.
	Who cares?
	It doesn't matter.
	It doesn't make a difference.
	It's not a problem that needs to be solved.
	As long as you're bringing in the most qualified people, whatever the demographic makeup happens to be at the end of that, it doesn't matter.
	It's not a problem.
	And so if no one is black, that ends up in that situation.
	That, you know, ends up in that camp, not a problem.
	If you end up with, everyone is black, also not a problem, as long as race is not taken into account at all, and you're just hiring the best people.
	But again, that's not how it goes.
	And here's the CEO of United making it clear how it really works.
	Listen.
	How is diversity and diversity targets working into the Aviator Academy?
	We have committed that 50% of the classes will be women or people of color.
	Today, only 19% of our pilots at United Airlines are women or people of color.
	And by the way, from all the data I've seen, that's the highest of any airline in the country.
	White males don't just dominate in the cockpits.
	Also in the C-suite at United Airlines.
	Well look at United I'm proud of the diversity that we actually have in our C-suite.
	I think if you look around corporate America.
	So this is just based off your website, the people you list as executives.
	But out of 11 people, three are women.
	I believe one is a person of color.
	That's correct.
	But, you know, in corporate America, I think, you know, How do you raise your own bar?
	Well, a lot of this is, you know, focusing on it.
	We have programs to, one of the things we do is for every job when we do an interview, we require women and people of color to be involved in the interview process.
	Bringing people in early in their careers as well and giving them those opportunities.
	Yeah, you know, you got to get those white males out of there, right?
	You know, the white males, you know, the people that...
	The form of travel where you're 35,000 feet in the air and going 400 miles an hour, and that's the safest.
	And the people who predominantly achieved that were white males.
	And so how do we thank them?
	Let's get them out of it.
	And when I say that the people who predominantly achieved that are white males, I'm not making that up.
	The proponents of DEI are the first to say that.
	They're the ones who are going to look at it and say, well, historically, it's been a white male-dominated field.
	Okay, so you're the one saying that.
	Okay, well, also, historically, what has this field achieved?
	Those white males who were dominating the field, were they doing poorly?
	Was there an issue?
	Was there a problem?
	Were they screwing up?
	No.
	The people who not only invented human flight to begin with, We're white males.
	And then the people who, even according to the DEI proponents, who made it unbelievably safe were also predominantly white males.
	So yeah, we got to get them out.
	Got to get those numbers down.
	This is what we're doing.
	We're looking at, we're saying, okay, here's an industry that's doing fantastically well, has achieved feats, What's the demographic predominantly responsible for that?
	Let's single them out and then try to get rid of them.
	And that's what they're doing now.
	It is suicide.
	Well, I was going to say it's suicidal, but it's not really because the CEO of United probably isn't even flying.
	He's probably flying private.
	He's not backing coach on a United flight.
	So it's not suicidal for him.
	I bet you he wants to make sure the people flying his planes that he's on are the most qualified.
	So, no, it's not suicidal, really.

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