Women remain an integral part of the history of the aviation industry. However, the stereotypes which portray women as inferior are having a crippling effect on the aviation industry (Zirulnik, 2014). However, despite being looked down upon for a long time, women have indicated a relentless desire to concur their space of freedom in the air. Some of the early female pilots, for instance, Ruth Law and Blanche Scott set the pace despite the resistance and discrimination (Hynes, and Puckett, 2011). In the United States, they still lag in embracing gender balance in the aviation industry unlike other airlines, for instance, Emirates and Qatar Airlines. Indeed, the shortage of pilots in the US airlines is partly because of the conservative nature that men are better suited to be pilots than women (Goyer, 2012). Certainly, there is a need for the American aviation industry to come up with measures geared towards ensuring a diverse workplace, by coming up with policies which encourage women recruitment in the industry.
Problem Statement
While there is the inherent need for cultural and gender integration in the business operations, this is not the case in the aviation industry. According to McCarthy (2015), gender inclusion and multicultural diversity in aviation is a recurrent issue, and there is a need for urgent action to mitigate some of the global challenges facing airlines today. Indeed, the problem of gender and cultural inclusion is not yet adequately addressed by the necessary authorities (Harl and Roberts, 2011). In the United States, the aviation industry has not solved the problem of gender disparity and minority discrimination. As a result, the aviation jobs are not yet open to all individuals in society. According to Gall (2018), America is facing an aviation pilot shortage to the tune of 10% loss per decade in the past three decades. Further, the aviation is industry is not diverse as it comprises of 4.1% women, 2.7 black, 2.5% Asian, and 5% Hispanic. Indeed, 91% of the flight deck is occupied by white males which made attrition inevitable (McGirt, 2016).
The long-held stereotype that women are not fit for the cockpit has denied many qualified women the opportunity to prove their worth and therefore better like the male counterparts (Callahan, 2016). In some of the US states, for instance, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the number of women pilots is far below the recommended threshold. Certainly, the aviation industry problem of shortage would not be an issue if the industry embraced gender and cultural inclusivity in the past (Weller, 2007). Germain et al. (2012) aver that the existing labor laws in aviation are discouraging women from pursuing a career in the aviation industry, the looming pilot shortage features how the aviation industry is likely to suffer if there do not exist proper measures to mitigate this problem. More specifically the following research questions will be addressed.
What is the extent to which gender inequality and minority inclusion contributes to the pilot shortage experienced in the United States?
Why are the non-white Americans isolated in the aviation industry?
Is it possible to achieve equality in staffing in the American Aviation industry?
Are the leaders ready to find a lasting solution to the challenges facing the aviation industry?
Will discrimination destabilize the American Aviation industry?
Target Organization
The motivation behind this project was followed by the changes experienced in the aviation industry and the fact that in the last few decades, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has indicated a gender gap in the field of aviation. According to Pinto (2007), the organization deals with the construction of airports, the certification of aircraft, management of the air traffic, and protects the government aerospace assets. Moreover, the organization is mandated in regulating all civil aviation activities in the United States. The Aviation Safety (AVS) division of the FAA ensures that the aircraft and other related machinery meet the certification standards (FAA website, 2018). Indeed, the lack of enough certified women pilots falls on the FAA as pilot certification is necessary for the United States before employment by a major airline.
However, there is the reluctance by the entire industry to embrace diversity and modernism that the 21st-century presents (Aggarwal, 2014). Indeed, as the body that regulates certification of pilots, the FAA plays a significant role in reversing the current underrepresentation of women and the minorities. If the FAA does not come up with measures to change the current trend, the aviation industry will continue to experience shortages despite the growth in the sector and increase in the minority population. For instance, in the year 2015, 89% of all the pilots were white while the African-Americans constituted 2.8% of the total employees (McGee, 2015). Moreover, in the year 2016, the percentage of women employees in the aviation industry was only 13% with the number of pilots less than 3% (McGee, 2015). However such underrepresentation is despite the aviation industry growth (Winter et al., 2014). There is a need for the FAA to investigate the disparity in the US aviation industry and execute lasting solutions to such a social issue that is certain to cost the aviation business in the near future.
Literature Supporting the Proposed Research Problem
For the aviation industry to address the recurrent issue of pilots shortage, government agencies should come in handy and sponsor female and minority pilots (Sweeney, 2015). The championing for equal opportunities for the minority and women to partake in the US aeronautics colleges can ultimately increase the minorities and women percentage from the current 4% to 23% by the year 2028 (Wittman and Swelbar, 2013). The government should come up with directives towards the FAA to come up with policies which require the US airlines to take advantage of the trained and competent women and the minority groups to curtail the deficiency. The FAA can achieve this by encouraging more minority students to enroll for pilot training which needs roughly 260 hours of training within six months after the completion of an undergraduate programme (Stimpson et al., 2016).
Based on the above discussion of gender and minority issues in the aviation industry, several questions arise about the USA’s perception of gender-connected pilot conduct. For instance, does the American aviation industry hold different observations regarding female and minority pilots in comparison to the opinions held by the commercial pilots? Such questions guided in the choice of the objectives of this study and the formulation of the hypothesis. The primary aim of the study was to investigate whether gender and minority disparities in the US aviation industry are responsible for the American pilot shortage (Freed, Setboonsarng, Lampert, 2018). Based on this, the following general hypotheses were formulated.
H1: there exist considerable differences between the perceptions of female and minority pilots and those held for the white pilots.
H2: there is a relationship between the American pilot shortage and the perceived stereotypes for female and the minority pilots.
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