Post by Welppp Bot on Apr 6, 2021 13:01:02 GMT
United Airlines says it will train 5,000 pilots at its own academy in this decade, and it hopes that half of them will be women or people of color.
BY DAVID KOENIG, AP Airlines Writer
United Airlines says it will train 5,000 this decade, including taking on applicants with no flying experience, and plans for half of them to be women or people of color.
United will borrow an approach used elsewhere, notably at Germany's Lufthansa, by taking people at the beginning of their flying careers and training them at its own academy, which it bought last year. United will continue to draw pilots from traditional sources such as the military, however.
Airline officials said they will begin accepting applicants for United's flight academy on Tuesday.
The subject of a pilot shortage — it is not universally accepted that one exists — was hotly discussed in the airline industry before the pandemic hit, then receded as airlines around the world grounded planes and reduced their pilot ranks in response to the the plunge in air travel.
The airline said it will work with three historically Black schools, Delaware State University, Elizabeth City State University and Hampton University, to find and recruit people for the academy.
Carole Hopson, a New Jersey-based United co-pilot who flies Boeing 737s, said she hopes the academy will give young Black women a less circuitous route than she took — from newspaper reporter to working for the NFL and then Foot Locker before learning to fly in her 30s — and give Black girls role models in aviation.
“For people who have never seen a pilot who looks like me, that gives them an opportunity to say, ‘Gee whiz, I can do that too,’” Hopson said.
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