I believe at SAA of the 800 pilots, about 80-90 are non-white. They have at least 2 black captains I know of, and a couple close to command. Considering it can take anything between 12-17 years to get command at SAA, and the country being "free" for only 12 years, the figures do not look too bad. A lot of cadetts are coming through the line as well, Flying for SA Express and SA Airlink, so in due course they should get into SAA and ultimately command.
I do not know this for a fact, but I believe in South Africa about 5% of pilots with commercial licences are black. 75% of the population are black, so the figures dont make sense.
You say the first commercial black pilot in the USA was hired in the 70's. Surely with a 10-15% black population at least 10% of the commercial pilots should be black. Any idea why the figures dont make mathematical sense?
Why is it that airlines like Emirats, Quatar, Cathy, Singapour, Dragon, Mauritius, Kenya, to name but a few, have to employ predominantly white expats to fly their aircraft? Is'nt it perhaps because flying appeals more to whites that it does to other skin colours? AND PLEASE, I MEAN THIS IN NO WAY TO BE A RACIST STATEMENT. It is purely an observation. By saying this I do not say flying does not appeal to non-whites and that flying is a white man's job. What I am saying is that flying attract (as a career,hobby,passion) more whites than non-whites. Not to say that it doesn't attract non-whites.
This is just my penny's worth, and may I reiterate that I in no way intended this post to have a racist undertone. I am just trying, like all of us, to make sense of this and to understand the issue better. I do not think the issue has anything to do with skin colour, i think it has to do with power.
Fly safe