From the Economist May 2014.
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS (SAA) has been taken to task by Solidarity, a trade union, over its discriminatory hiring practices for pilots. The union is angry with the state-owned carrier's decision not to admit Daniël Hoffman to its cadet pilot programme for the second year in a row. Mr Hoffman, whose theory and psychometric tests were described as exceptional by Solidarity, is a white male. That puts him at a handicap against other applicants because of the airline's self-professed bias towards hiring black, coloured (mixed race), Indian or white female pilots.
In 2012, Solidarity submitted two near-identical applications for SAA's cadet pilot programme. There was just one difference: one applicant was white, the other was black. The white candidate received a swift rejection letter; the black one was accepted onto the programme. SAA defended its policy at the time by noting that 85% of its serving pilots were white. A spokesperson for the airline told Beeld, an Afrikaans-language daily newspaper, that whites will only be hired once efforts to find applicants of other races are exhausted. The subsequent media furore forced SAA to ditch its policy, but Solidarity suspects it is still being implemented behind the scenes.
Most commercial pilots in Africa are not indigenous to the continent. This has nothing to do with whites being better at flying and everything to do with the better opportunities they have historically enjoyed. They usually come from richer backgrounds and have better access to education, which gives them a head-start. SAA is therefore trying to level the socio-economic playing field by shifting things back in favour of disadvantaged blacks.
Affirmative action is a central pillar of government policy in South Africa. The government has launched various Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programmes in an attempt to reverse the injustices of history. Most white South Africans concede that some form of post-apartheid redress is inevitable. As long as it is pursued fairly, such re-balancing should benefit society. But a blanket ban on training white male pilots seems crass. Putting aside the prestige and compensation that pilots enjoy, their job is one of the most demanding and socially responsible functions in any economy. Millions of South Africans entrust their lives to commercial pilots each year. Elevating arbitrary criteria such as skin colour above objective, performance-based measures should be roundly condemned.
There are better solutions. Ethiopian Aviation Academy, a subsidiary of Ethiopian Airlines, another large African carrier, is training indigenous pilots in record numbers. The academy already processes 1,000 trainees per year, and it plans to quadruple this figure over the next decade. Applicants are drawn not just from Ethiopia, but from across East Africa and beyond. These graduates should, over time, turn the tide from majority-white to majority-black flight crews on the continent. SAA’s cadet programme, meanwhile, selected just 40 candidates last year (none of them white males).
Pilots may not be the only victims of SAA's policies. When the airline had to select a new boss last summer—its fifth in as many years—Nico Bezuidenhout, an experienced white airline executive, was among the front-runners. He lost out to Monwabisi Kalawe, a black executive with no prior experience in the industry. One year on, Mr Kalawe is reportedly being investigated over four allegations of impropriety; the airline insists he has done nothing untoward. Most South Africans simply want their flag carrier to be run by a competent, experienced manager. Likewise, most passengers simply want a competent, experienced pilot to land them safely on the ground. Skin colour should be a non-issue