Airline pilots’ union loses its bearings

Afraid of flying? It’s time to get scared: wokeism has started making inroads into airline industry big way. Pilots are told to use proper and inoffensive language, and aircraft makers are getting more and more concerned about the so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies, instead of making their product safe.

The Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA), the largest pilots’ union globally, is now telling aircraft crews that the word “cockpit” may offend some and they better use other expressions.

What is so offensive about cockpits, the ALPA didn’t say.

A few years ago, Airbus encountered their own round of issues with the do-gooders. When their planes are close to touchdown and their automated systems detect they are going too fast and tell the pilots to retard, meaning they should use whatever braking mechanism they have that is not yet in operation, the politically correct crowd got upset. Nobody told them that the word meant an instruction to decelerate or slow down.

When the Airbus critics howled in disgust, ALPA told them where to take off, and the problem seemed to have been solved.

Not so fast. If there is anything the politically correct can’t stand, it’s defeat. Normal logic be damned.

The criticism by the flying illiterates forced ALPA to issue their own Inclusive Language Reference Guide.

The union has run into major disagreement coming from the ranks of the most experienced fliers. Take your language guide and stuff it you know where was the tenor of pilots’ reaction. When we fly, it’s safety first, not worries about some hyper-sensitive bimbos who would faint if we uttered an impolite four-letter word while handling a critical situation.

Strange timing

The ALPA call is coming at a time when major aircraft builders face huge safety problems.

For example, Boeing has been losing fly-worthiness certifications for their ultra-modern planes left, right and centre, and no DEI initiatives are going to help them.

And yet, it’s precisely these initiatives that can be blamed for many of the problems the famous U.S. aircraft builder has been encountering the last few years. Hiring imbeciles to fill particular quotas won’t make airplanes safer.

Some analysts say another issue Boeing has been encountering has something to do with their merger with McDonnell-Douglas company a couple of decades ago, their then-major industry competitor. It was McDonnell-Douglas at the time who needed to be rescued but, quite shockingly, it would precisely their corporate poohbahs who would take over the reins at Boeing. The corporate culture at Boeing changed swiftly with their arrival, with penny-pinching becoming a major objective, and safety issues taking a back seat.

With these DEI programs getting all kinds of government support, including grants and order preference, Boeing’s fate was doomed.

And now the industry faces a union push for more of such nonsense.

Airline analysts claim that it was precisely the combination of the new bosses’ penny-pinching with politically correct culture that is to blame for the grounding of the 737 Max after two fatal crashes. The focus on DEI initiatives, such as language changes, may have diverted attention from addressing critical safety and operational issues.

ALPA should concentrate on how to make its members’ (the fliers) jobs easier and safer to perform.

Certainly, languages tend to develop and what used to be your normal vernacular and colloquial expression yesterday can be obsolete today and forgotten tomorrow.

Yet, it shouldn’t be coming as art for art’s sake (l’art pour l’art). Language development dictated from above have reasons other than pure linguistics. They are politically motivated, set to create chaos, not to improve communications between people.

Ask any airline passenger whether they prefer politically correct language in the cockpit to safe arrival (and on time) at their destination, and the overwhelming reply will be obvious.

Village idiots control American skies

What does it take to land jobs in U.S. aviation industry these days?

Being kicked out from a closed psychiatric asylum as a hopelessly untreatable clinical moron, that’s what.

At least, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration say so: their own website claims that it is “actively recruiting workers who suffer ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions.” All that is happening under what has become known as diversity and inclusion hiring initiative.

They are not alone in going woke beyond belief: BestBuy, the electronic marketing giant, have announced recently their promotion policies have changed. People of set race (ethnic background is the word these days), or skin colour, put the simplest way, have the best chance to get ahead within BestBuy’s hierarchy. Knowledge? Abilities? Who cares about such secondary criteria? You’d have to really study and analyse the potential candidates. Their birth certificates and skin colours do the job for you in the new system.

It’s somewhat different with the FAA: human lives can be at stake.

So, a plug door on a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight Friday, Jan. 5.

What did FAA do? Why, they grounded all 737 MAX 9 planes after the incident, and are carrying out an “extensive inspection” and maintenance work.

What if some clinical moron just thought there was no need to check the mechanism. He had an electronic game to attend to, after all, and that’s more important.

To make sure everybody knows the real culprit, the FAA said they would increase their oversight of Boeing following the incident, they include auditing Boeing’s 737 Max 9 jetliner production line and companies that supply parts to the airline manufacturer.

Boeing, come to think of it, sits near to Seattle, the real seat of all things going wonky under the guise of progressivism in North America.

Not many were fooled, especially not within social media ranks: an overwhelming number of commenters and public figures have charged that airlines and airline manufacturers’ emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has made flying less safe.

Just look at this kind of hot air emanating from FAA: “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.”

And all that is supposed to prove that “diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”

As Elon Musk of X alias Twitter fame put it: “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety?”

And to make sure to show this was not a rhetorical question, he added: “That is actually happening.”

The so-called progressive civil rights activists call objections to the DEI hiring policies “abhorrent,” forgetting that air travellers have a right to get to their destinations safely. Such travellers are self-centred enough to pooh-pooh FAA’s website’s claim according to which people with “severe” mental and physical disabilities are the most under-represented segment of the federal workforce.

“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 FAA states.

The FAA claim that the Administration thoroughly seek and vet qualified candidates “from as many sources as possible” for a range of positions. Besides, in the woke world we live in now, refusing to accept mentally ill people would equal discrimination.

Here’s FAA’s official word: “The FAA employs tens of thousands of people for a wide range of positions, from administrative roles to oversight and execution of critical safety functions. Like many large employers, the Administration proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that of course will vary by position.”

The so-called progressives (one wonders how they dared steal the word) have created a group of health care professionals, medical students and policymakers working to (their own blurb) “protect health care from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology.”

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a retired professor and the former associate dean for curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is the chairman of Do No Harm, as the group call themselves. Who cares they stole the expression from Hippocrates?

Dr. Goldfarb compared his field of expertise with that of aviation. Answering a Fox News reporter’s question, he said that similar to the medical field, the aviation industry has an obligation to protect its travellers.

“The aviation industry has a responsibility for traveller safety just as the health care industry has a responsibility for patient safety. These responsibilities outweigh other factors when considering applicants to work in those fields.”

Realising he might have gone too far, he qualified his statement thus: “People with disabilities who can successfully complete the task should never face discrimination.”

Seeing the lack of logic made the good old professor back somewhat faster, even: “Unfortunately,” identity politics is “creating opportunities for so-called oppressed groups by lowering standards for entry into those fields and thereby endangering the safety of those which it’s designed to serve. Some endeavours simply do not lend themselves to identity politics,” he added.

In a fine display of alibism, the FAA also trumpets that employees with disabilities will be provided “reasonable accommodation” on the job, whatever this is supposed to mean.