United Airlines Honors Juneteenth With an All-black Crew on a Flight From Houston to Chicago (employment, generation)
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United Airlines celebrated Juneteenth with a special flight from Houston to Chicago with an all-Black crew from the flight attendants and pilots to the gate agents, and more.
The flight, UA1258, took off from Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 10:30 a.m. and flew to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, commemorating the holiday and celebrating the launch of United's Black Business Resource Group, the airline shared with Travel + Leisure.
"As a global airline driven by our purpose and values, we're in the business of bringing people together," Jessica Kimbrough, United's chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, told T+L. "This flight represents our commitment to doing our part to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and world."
To celebrate the momentous flight, United covered the gate in balloons and waved the plane off with a water cannon salute.
The idea behind this was pretty simple: The airline used Juneteenth as a way to to expand awareness of employment opportunities in the airline industry, which is, like many big industries in the U.S. , pretty white. Hence, the all-black crew. And the all-black crew's flight on Juneteenth was planned, I'd gather, specifically because UA knew it would get a big audience on that date. If it helps to draw in more black pilots, mechanics, technicians, engineers, et al, I'm all for it, and don't find it condescending at all.
"United crewed the flight with all Black employees and the airline hopes it will inspire others to join the aviation industry...The airline hoping the Juneteenth celebration will inspire future aviators and airline professionals... This Juneteenth flight comes just two months after United Airlines pledged to diversify its pipeline of pilots, with a goal of training thousands of people of color by 2030."
"Studies show that only 2.47% of United States aircraft pilots and flight engineers are Black, according to Data USA.
“It is very difficult being a Black person, a Black woman, in the aviation industry,” [United pilot Deon ]Byrne said. “There’s not a lot of encouragement, and there’s absolutely mentorship for the future generation, but when I came in, it was very difficult to find the funding, the resources, and the connections to get started in the industry.”
After 25 years of working in the aviation industry, Byrne said Saturday was the first time she had ever flown with an all-Black staff."
The idea behind this was pretty simple: The airline used Juneteenth as a way to to expand awareness of employment opportunities in the airline industry, which is, like many big industries in the U.S. , pretty white. Hence, the all-black crew. And the all-black crew's flight on Juneteenth was planned, I'd gather, specifically because UA knew it would get a big audience on that date. If it helps to draw in more black pilots, mechanics, technicians, engineers, et al, I'm all for it, and don't find it condescending at all.
Thanks, good explanation. It does seem like a nice gesture. What I don't get is how come 2.5% of airline pilots are African-American when something like 15% of Air Force pilots are.
Of course United is going to promote the Biden admin. narrative. Like all airlines its so dependent on the federal govt for its very existance it might was well be a branch of it
I don't know, perhaps the intention was good, but to me it is just oft-putting. It just screams of being condescending and woke.
I can just see the internal recruiting ads for the airline to get a crew for this flight. "Come and celebrate with us! But you have to be black. That's the most important thing to us."
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