Consequence in the Age of Virtue Signaling
In February 2020, United Airlines acquired a flight-training subsidiary and promptly dubbed it United Aviate Academy. The Goodyear, Arizona-based flight-school was to train five-thousand new pilots by 2030—half of whom were to be women or people of color, and the entirety of which were to be guaranteed flying jobs at United Airlines.
Comes now 2023 and the levying of a worrying set of allegations against United Aviate Academy by a purported student thereof.
In a protracted Reddit post, the unnamed ostensible student suggests with compelling detail and perceptible urgency that something is well and truly questionable in Goodyear.
To wit.
“So remember United’s 'revolutionary' flight school The United Aviate Academy?
“Yeah well, it’s kind of an absolute dumpster fire.
“What could go wrong when you put a $17-billion airline in charge of a large flight school? Well apparently literally everything.
“The school is riddled with problems.
“They have hundreds of people who have been accepted that are waiting for class dates but they are currently bringing in 10-15 students per month and even skipping some months.
“They are incredibly behind on their training timeline. Everywhere they state that this is a 12-month program, 0-MEI [Zero-time pilot to Multi-Engine Flight Instructor], but in reality, people are taking over 18 months just to finish CFI [Certified Flight Instructor].
“Another example of training delays, people at the academy are currently taking over five months to finish their PPLs [Private Pilot License]. Of a class of 16 that started Q1 2023, only four have taken their PPL check-ride as of the end of June.
“Instructors are incredibly overloaded, some instructors have as many as 11 students, and remember, these are all full-time students. Students are promised five flights per week but are often capped at two-to-four because the instructors cannot legally fly enough.
“Speaking of overloaded instructors, management pushes CFIs to their limits but also watches their every move and any minor wrong step like flying too much with certain students has gotten CFIs fired.
“People are having to wait up to a month in between certificates due to instructor overload.
“They are not hiring their own graduates but are starting to hire externally.
“Management is trying to hide all the problems. For example; they are having 'graduation ceremonies' for those who finish CPL [Commercial Pilot License] (even though the program doesn’t end until you finish all your CFI certificates) in order to make them look on time since people are taking 12-13 months just to finish CPL.
“UAA fosters a culture of intimidation. Many students have been let go after speaking out or complaining to hire-ups for vague reasons, and therefore students currently at the school are too scared to speak out. School management constantly has all eyes and ears open for any sign of dissent or criticism and is looking over everyone’s shoulder.
“Despite all these issues, United Aviate Academy management is currently having internal casting calls for a prime-time commercial that will be airing nationwide. I think that shows where the school’s management’s priorities lie.
“At this point, I am convinced that United doesn’t care about flight training at all and United Aviate Academy is just a poster child for its 'good leads the way' marketing message because whenever they talk about the school they only talk about how many women and minorities are at the school but never discuss any actual flight training accomplishments or achievements.
“I speak today on behalf of many UAA students who unfortunately cannot speak about this openly for the above-stated reasons. Hopefully, if someone is considering this school they will see this and think otherwise, and also maybe this info getting out there will foster some change at this school.”
On 06 April 2021, United Airlines posted a tweet reading: “Our flight decks should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day. That’s why we plan for fifty-percent of the five-thousand pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color.”
The air-carrier’s expressed intention to predicate pilot hiring on gender and ethnicity rather than competence and experience occasioned tremendous backlash. Responding to such, United, in short-order, issued a so-called clarification stating: “All the highly qualified candidates we accept into the Academy, regardless of race or sex, will have met or exceeded the standards we set for admittance.”
Two years on, a damning, anonymous tweet intimates with conviction that United’s true intentions—to prioritize de rigueur identity-politics over reason, best practices, and safety of flight—were spelled out in the initial tweet.
Social engineering has proved questionable across a broad array of industries... albeit all the good intentions.
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