Tuesday, March 10, 2026

U.S. airlines told to stop DEI-hiring pilots

Airline DEI hiring

Americans care about flight safety, not what the crew “looks like or their gender,” the US transportation secretary has said.

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a sweeping mandate requiring all commercial airlines to formally commit to merit-based hiring for pilots, explicitly barring the use of race or sex as factors in recruitment.

The directive, delivered via a new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Operations Specification (OpSpec), demands that carriers certify they have terminated any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in pilot selection. Airlines that fail to comply face the threat of federal investigation.



“When families board their aircraft, they should fly with confidence knowing the pilot behind the controls is the best of the best,” Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in a statement on Friday. “The American people don’t care what their pilot looks like or their gender – they just care that they are the most qualified man or woman for the job.”

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FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stressed that the rule is fundamentally about safety.

“It is a bare minimum expectation for airlines to hire the most qualified individual when making someone responsible for hundreds of lives at a time,” Bedford said. “Someone’s race, sex, or creed has nothing to do with their ability to fly and land aircraft safely.”

The Trump administration’s focus on aviation hiring practices intensified following a deadly midair collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people last January, just days after President Donald Trump took office. In the aftermath, Trump publicly blamed DEI hiring practices at the FAA, which he alleged were inherited from the previous administration.

While the FAA has already dismantled its internal DEI offices and raised performance standards, “allegations of airlines hiring based on race and sex remain,” according to the DOT. The new OpSpec is designed to close that gap by forcing transparency from the airlines themselves.

The mandate aligns with Trump’s wider campaign to purge DEI initiatives from the federal government and its regulated industries.

The Department of War recently announced a “line-by-line” review of its contracts with small businesses, which Secretary Pete Hegseth described as “the oldest DEI program in the federal government” and a “breeding ground for fraud.”

Image credit: Joao

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Source:RT News

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I believe some are going to hate me for saying this. I prefer male airline pilots. Having lived most of my life, the diferences between male and female are not just physical strength and endurance.

    Factors include time of month could make women crotchety, Some quite painful. Rushing though checklists. Unfocused. Males are more mechanically minded.

    In a normal day when everything runs smoothly. No issues, weather is smooth, no problems with the aircraft navigation systems or mechanical malfunctions.

    The oppsite to this is intermittent faults or faults that require testing the aircrafts new limits. Congestion at major airports adding to the workload.

    I’m not saying women aren’t good at their job. I am saying men are better. at some jobs. If I had a choice, a male pilot please.

    Need I point out there are no female All Blacks. There is the mens 100m race and the womens 100m. Men are faster runners than women.

  2. This wouldn’t be the case if girls and women were allowed decent technical education from the start of their schooling. Unfortunately this is not the case in many countries and many societies where DEI has been usurped by a corrupted medical/pharmaceutical takeover of strange strangeness and ‘womens’ rights’ mean men in dresses with implanted wombs ripped from deceased or partly deceased females. Girls and young women are not only actively dissuaded from showing any interest in science & technology, they are forced into ‘transitioning’ to be a boy if they do. Male pilots yes, well trained female pilots, yes. Long haul flights, male pilots. But please, let’s not go all sharia law over this and rethink the school curriculum over the idea that ones gender is a choice or that women should cover themselves in garbage bags. Also, remember the women who manned the railways etc during the WW2.

    • Thank you for replying to my preferences for male airline pilot’s. My point is when I fly I expect to have the best of the very best in command. You are welcome to fly with a person who has monthly hormonal and biological, endurance limitations.

      I agree, women have taken over medial, education, university enrolment, government employees industries. Some equality adjustment is needs to be looked into there.

      I look forward to women constructing houses and large commercial buildings. Making roads, working in the mines, building bridges, becoming front line soldiers on the battlefield. To be bricklayers. To wear out hands, limbs. To work in unhealthy environments. To have shorter life expectancies, health issues because of it.

      I hear a lot about womens rights. I never hear about mens rights. We men have the right to say no to women moving into our homes. We have the right to set up professionally managed trusts. We have the right to have peace and not be salves. We have the right to hire a young professional lady for the evening if we want too.

      This is not hate of women. It is protecting assets, wealth and mental wellbeing. To limit liability. To have peace.

      Male suicide is now called mental health. Thats a lie. Suicide is caused by extreme mental abuse.

      My question for women is. Are you happy with the new rules men now live by? Are you happy to be childless or solo mums? Are you happy to live on a limited benefit. Are you happy maintaining the property you live in. Are you happy dropping your newborn off to daycare at 7am amd pickimg that baby up at 6pm. Are you happy having children to different fathers? Are you happy on a single income, living from week to week. Limiting where and the house or unit you live. Choosing the necessary. Not having a man providing all thoses things for free? Keen to know your thoughts.

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