Airline pilot is one of those jobs, along with brain surgeon, that used to be used as an example of the type of position for which affirmative action was obviously unsuited.  Who wants to board an aircraft or go under the knife with someone in charge chosen for factors other than ability?  Lives are at stake, after all.  Anything less than the absolute best should be unacceptable.

Yet, in this age of identity politics madness, United Airlines proudly proclaimed its intention to choose half of its pilot training recruits based on skin color and X-chromosomes:

Our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day. That’s why we plan for 50% of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color. Learn more and apply now: https://t.co/VbOFvFOksB pic.twitter.com/r0ScH6MQAJ

— United Airlines (@united) April 6, 2021

Uh, no.  I won't fly on an airline that prioritizes anything over pure ability when it comes to pilots.  And, because United's hub at San Francisco has been my primary airport for more than three decades (many of which were years of heavy travel), I've generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for UAL.  I was a Premier Executive–level frequent traveler with them for many years.  I just flew across an ocean on one of their 777s less than two weeks ago.

But piloting is a seriously demanding job, and the consequences of even small errors can be deadly.  In the hands of a skilled pilot, the landing of a big airplane like a 777 can be a thing of beauty that looks easy.

But it isn't:

Would a future Sully Sullenberger, the pilot hero of the "Miracle on the Hudson" water landing, be passed over because he is a pale male?  After all, half the slots in United's pilot training program would be off limits, so chances are pretty good he would be.  The same goes for Al Hanes, who landed United 232, a DC-10 that had a complete hydraulic failure, at Sioux City Airport and managed to save many of the lives — alas, not all — of his passengers through incredible improvisational skills.  His lack of melanin and his Y-chromosomes would close half the slots to him.

Tucker Carlson opened his show last night with nearly ten minutes on United's virtue-signaling at the expense of safety.  He made many solid points, and I embed the full segment below.

United used to be a conventional commercial air carrier. It flew airplanes from place to place, most of the time uneventfully. That was the old United Airlines. The new United is very different. It's a combination of a hyper-aggressive corporate HR department, and a left-wing political action committee. The new United is big on moral pronouncements and mandatory social engineering. (snip)

An airline pilot transports hundreds of people at a time in a thin-walled metal tube going nearly 600 miles an hour, 35,000 feet off the ground. Flying a commercial airliner is dangerous. Like performing heart surgery, no matter how many times you've done it, it's inherently high stakes. People die if you screw up. In the airline business, as in medicine, not killing people is all that matters. So, how will racial and gender quotas make United Airlines safer? That's the only question that matters.

Watch and make your future airline travel plans accordingly:

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.