3 days ago
Trump: Push to hire female pilots puts passengers at risk
Donald Trump has attacked plans to recruit more female pilots, saying passengers will be put in danger because women may not be up to the job.
On Wednesday, the White House accused a United Nations gender equality initiative – which aims to get more females into the aviation industry – of overlooking men who are better qualified and risking passenger safety.
The programme, which is run by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), has existed since 2017 with the aim of recruiting more women into an industry where about 94pc of pilots, 85pc of engineers and 80pc of air traffic controllers are male.
However, the US said it would no longer fund the scheme and demanded that ICAO change its name from the 'Gender Equality Programme' to the 'Empowerment Programme for Women'.
The White House also wants ICAO to promote women based solely on their 'skills, performance and hard work', and to focus its attention on the 'needs and perspectives of women'.
It marks another broadside from the US president against diversity policies in aviation. He previously suggested that such initiatives may have played a role in January's fatal collision between a passenger jet and an army helicopter flown by a female captain, Rebecca Lobach, who died in the crash.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board into the incident found the helicopter was getting faulty altitude data, causing it to fly too high. No pilot error has so far been established. The full findings are expected in 2026.
Mr Trump has also reversed a ban on the use of the word 'airmen' in pilot safety bulletins, instructing the Federal Aviation Administration to reintroduce the term 'notice to airmen'. It had been outlawed under Joe Biden and replaced with 'notice to air missions'.
The latest attack on the UN initiative was revealed in a 'working paper' ahead of a triennial gathering of senior industry regulators scheduled to begin next month.
While acknowledging that the aviation industry faced a shortage of skilled professionals amid continued growth in air travel, it said: 'We do not support programmes that grant preferences based on sex or other characteristics.
'Hiring for these critical jobs, upon which the lives of millions of passengers depend every day, must be based solely on ensuring the safety and security of airline passengers.'
The submission, ahead of ICAO's meeting in Montreal next month, also said that the organisation should avoid focusing on 'radical causes' such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and gender ideology.
Instead, the agency should use 'clear and accurate language that recognises women are biologically female and men are biologically male', it said.
The document also warned against the use of the term gender to replace biological categories with 'an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity', to the detriment of women.
The ICAO was created by 52 countries in 1944 after the US called a convention in Chicago to establish international standards for aviation. It declined to comment.
Research published last week by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, suggested that female pilots may outperform their male counterparts in high-pressure situations.
Naila Ayala, from the university, said tests conducted on a simulator showed women made fewer flight control errors when stress levels increased.
