The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) DEI initiatives have made the news after Alaska Airlines lost a door during a flight.
The FAA, which is under Pete Buttigieg’s Transportation Department, updated its DEI policies in March 2022.
Because diversity is so critical, FAA actively supports and engages in a variety of associations, programs, coalitions and initiatives to support and accommodate employees from diverse communities and backgrounds. Our people are our strength, and we take great care in investing in and valuing them as such.The mission of the FAA involves securing the skies of a diverse nation. It only makes sense that the workforce responsible for that mission reflects the nation that it serves.
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 also has something called on-the-spot hiring, which doesn’t make me feel better:
A non-competitive hiring method for filling vacancies with Veterans and/or individuals with disabilities. Managers can choose to fill an open position through the On-the-Spot hiring process given they provide the required documentation for doing so.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to worry about places hiring people with disabilities that could not only affect the job but literally affect many lives.
But since the FAA prioritizes diversity, how can we be sure it won’t put people in inappropriate roles?
The FAA has a ton of jobs. Therefore, more than likely, at least I hope, the FAA wouldn’t hire someone in a role that would compromise the lives of others.
The same could be said for the airlines and airline manufacturers. I doubt we won’t have to wait much longer until we see the headline, “Such and such introduces the first blind pilot.”
People have also pointed out that many airlines and airline manufacturers have placed too much emphasis on diversity and not qualifications.
On January 5, an Alaska Airlines flight on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 lost its plug door.
The FAA launched an investigation, grounding all Boeings with the same panel.
Well, look what Boeing did in 2022! The bonus plan added climate and DEI goals.
Boeing’s “Global Equity, Diversity & Inclusion 2023 Report” boasted about adding inclusion to incentive compensation:
Separately, Boeing issued a “Global Equity, Diversity & Inclusion 2023 Report,” which noted that “also in 2022, for the first time in our company’s history, we tied incentive compensation to inclusion.”“Our goal was to achieve diverse interview slates for at least 90% of manager and executive openings,” the report said, adding that the company exceeded the target, “with 92% of interview slates being diverse, resulting in 47% diverse hires.”“For 2023, we’ve raised the bar and expect at least 92.5% of those interview slates will be diverse.”Boeing declined to comment on Thursday.
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