Ah well, nothing a bit of positive discrimination can't fix.

Good luck to all you ladies applying, I'm sure you'll feel very proud competing on equal terms.

https://www.pilotcareernews.com/thom...det-programme/

Also https://careers.easyjet.com/pilots/f...opportunities/
"Requirements of the role" - No penis

I was under the impression that gender discrimination is illegal in Europe, or that doesn't apply if the beneficiaries of such practices have a v****a between their legs?

In order to 'equalise' pay, are there any sponsorships aimed at recruiting more men as cabin crew? ... No, I thought not.

Surely there should be valid equality legal challenges against men being excluded from these airline sponsorships solely on the basis of gender?

I wonder what the reaction would be if it says “Male Pilots only”. There would be uproar, surely this cannot be legal?

Hmm. Positive discrimination is encouraged in the UK to address historical or cultural imbalance. The issue with women as pilots is far more to do with the cost of training and the bank of mummy and daddy not being opened so readily for Prudence. Pay and opportunities on applying and throughout their career in aviation, in the UK at least, are the same. Indeed, opportunities maybe in favour of women. Gender pay gaps are measured against jobs of similar importance/difficulty and not across a corporate structure. BA or Easy are not required to measure a gender pay gap between pilots and cabin crew but independently. So there is no gender pay gap so these companies do not need to worry.
What is likely to be of more interest after we get over the current bubble of misogynist hunting is the number of black pilots against the population average.

I would say ageism is a bigger problem than sexism in the aviation industry. It's well known that airlines favour the younger candidates for low hour positions. A newly qualified pilot the wrong side of 40 struggles much more to get a foot in the door. I therefore look forward to the launch of a sponsorship scheme for older pilots in order to redress the balance and to promote age equality.....but I won't hold my breath.

I couldn't care what 'group' any pilot belongs to, can they fly??!! The rest is just waffle. Do the same percentage of these 'other groups' really want to be pilots? That is a far, far more fundamental matter than trying to tinker around with blatantly discriminatory 'engineering' of the system.

Whilst I have a natural dislike of positive discrimination I would ask why you would think that black children would not dream of being an airline pilot ? And if they do, what stops them from fulfilling their dream ? Then, when you know the answers to these questions you have to decide whether it is right or wrong to tinker with the system.

No mention of “jobs of similar importance”. Nor is there on gov.uk.

I'll just leave this here ...

FTEJerez & Thomas Cook Airlines announce new Airline Cadet programme and Scholarship for Female Pilots ? FTEJerez | News

I am sure lots of black children dream to be an airline pilot. I think the show stopper for most of them is the big cost of getting the qualification required for the job.

The same cost applies to everyone else, no matter what skin colour, religion, gender etc.... they are.

Why should there be schemes that benefit only certain skin colour or gender when everyone in Europe has the same access to gain the qualification if they can pay for it?

I agree with the gist of everything above, but look at the airline gender pay gap (mainly male pilots vs. mainly female cabin crew) in light of the Tesco case.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...n-sight-years/

Equality of opportunity seems right and just, but it seems equality of outcome is the new goal.

Injust? Crazy? World gone mad?

FlipFlapFlop, I had a very interesting chat with someone who grew up on a council housing estate due to his parents having fallen on hard times. He had exactly the same money, etc., in the family as all the surrounding families. However he had something that he clearly saw that the other kids lacked: ambition. His parents had the same 'financial' wealth as the surrounding parents but they encouraged curiosity and ambition, something that was lacking in the surrounding parents. He was telling me this in connection with the push at the time to get an equal percentage of children from 'deprived' backgrounds to university as those from 'advantaged' backgrounds. And he said it simply wasn't going to happen because those kids just didn't have the ambition. (He doesn't have any academic qualifications himself, but holds a high position as an airline pilot.) So don't look at any group and see the problems there, look at the curiosity and ambition promoted by the parents; that is worth more than money. (And by the way, in our family the women have higher academic qualifications than the men!) And then look at the kids themselves: I would say that in many cases, choosing not to become an airline pilot probably shows a level of intelligent perception. Forced social engineering with 'positive discrimination' (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) is bad. Encouragement and open ambition is good.

I would like to see men initiate a legal challenge against gender discrimination in the sponsorship mentioned above.

Yes!!! :ok:

The Equality Act 2010 gives women (and men) a right to equal pay for equal work.

The roles of flight crew and cabin crew are completely different. They are not compared to each other and are not lumped together to calculate a gender pay gap. The Act requires all companies over 250 employees to publish data. In the case of airlines they will be required to show if there is a gap for pilots and cabin crew separately from each other. It is not a single figure per employer.


I was not supporting positive discrimination. I thought I had made that clear. But there is something wrong when huge parts of the population are debarred from a career because of the cost of entry.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gender-p...r-calculations

Not according to government guidelines on calculating the gap. No mention whatsoever of differing jobs.

I stand corrected. Workforce Gender Pay Gap calculation. Different from equal pay. What a piece of meaningless bureaucratic bollox. Apologies.

I think the rot set in with positive discrimination when Jessica Starmer decided the rules around junior pilot proficiency didn't apply to her just because she was a woman.:mad:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...workandcareers

Positive discrimination vs Positive action
 

Positive discrimination is illegal in the EU, positive action is not. The problem companies appear to have is telling the difference. So encouraging certain under representated groups to apply is fine but preventing others from applying as a way of achieving the same thing is a no-no. My local police force fell foul of that one!