Former American CEO Doug Parker On Breaking Down Barriers

Can I also ask, is diversity an issue that you're also trying to address? I'll be honest, you know, I fly a lot, you know, I do.

And there's still a lot of, there's nothing wrong here.

They're great pilots, but there's a lot of, shall we say, you know, white male pilots out there.

Is diversity an issue as well that you're

trying to transcend? Well, yeah, in some sense.

Again, I would go back to it's more about socioeconomics.

So it's more about the ability to pay.

That, of course, lends itself to, you know, some diversity.

And just because of the socioeconomics of our country.

But it's less about that, Karen.

Our criteria are these for diversity.

Although I do think that diversity is really important, I don't want to dismiss it.

But our criteria for finding candidates are, first, you could not possibly do this without us.

This is just not something you would ever be able to do without breaking down barriers.

And that excludes a lot of people because a lot of people want to be pilots, but they can figure out their way through the process over time.

They have means and they'll figure it out.

So that matters.

Second, of course, you have to be able to do it.

You have to be able...

This is a really difficult job.

There's a reason that there aren't a lot of people that do it.

It's because it takes a lot of training.

You have to be intelligent.

You have to have the right mentality.

So we have a couple of tests that we give individuals that Dana used through a firm at United to make sure that they can actually do it if we put them in the program.