Our thanks to D for this. The captain’s comments appeared yesterday in the comments stream following a video about the gender pay gap – here. They echo comments made to me by a highly experienced commercial pilot recently. The man (‘Goofus’) writes:
As a long haul airline Captain, I read this bbc article on easyjet pay and my heart sank. The idea that more women being hired as pilots and presumably more men being hired as cabin crew is somehow the answer to this illusory problem in the modern world is complete madness. Whilst I have flown with some very competent female pilots in my time (and I take my hat off to them for choosing to work in a very male environment) I have also flown with quite a large proportion of them that have been well below par. Call me bigoted or misogynist or whatever else you like but that is my sincere personal experience. Being generally fond of women I have found myself quietly willing them to do well on an approach to land. Another bounced and hard landing later nothing is said and we move on to park the aircraft. They tend to be very pleasant to work with and are more cooperative than some of my male colleagues have been but that doesn’t really compensate for ability. As long as the autopilot is engaged they have been great colleagues to work with. However, when the autopilot is not engaged and some spatial work is required to fly the aircraft things have not always gone so well in my experience. That’s not to say that there haven’t been male colleagues who have been as poor at handling an aircraft but it does seem in my humble opinion to be a common denominator in the female group. Given how low their overall representation in the flying community is and that they are already currently being “given a pass” in the simulator where a male colleague would be given a serious bollocking or failed, I can’t understand why anyone with an ounce of sanity would set hiring targets of 20%. Surely the current regime of hiring those with the best ability is the best course of action for a safety critical industry. Flying is a competitive game and many of the young pilots that graduate don’t get jobs because they are actually not good enough to fly commercially. Skewing the hiring requirements to being 20% female will mean all female pilots will be hired and they will still be short. It will have the inevitable consequence of reducing the safety on board a commercial flight. I hold my head in my hands at this thought.
Justice for Men & Boys 
Scary. In fact terrifying given the one thing that does NOT have to be adjusted for a disabled person is a competency standard.
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I’m glad you pointed that out. One of the great disasters in recent years as the amalgamation of the disability rights commission into the EHRC and the Minister for Women and Equality. Which meant all focus goes to women and there is little attention to people who face both discrimination and actual real practical problems. No one even begins to think of modify entry requirements to Police, Army, Fire services etc. to enable disabled people to do the work, for obvious practical reasons. Yet its ok for “substandard” women to get a pass (and be a danger).
Just today watching a prog. about Bentley interviewing workers a woman said how some of the engine building jobs tended to be done by women due to the dexterity needed and others tended to be done by men. Common sense based on some pretty clear general physical differences. What madness to keep insisting on ignoring both aptitudes and choice and let people get on with it.
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These comments fit so well with my experience as an aircraft tech. During training our course of 16 had one female. She made mistakes during practical exams that were safety critical and we’d been informed this would mean immediate failure. Low and behold she graduated with us all at the end of the course. Met up with a course mate years later and found out she hadn’t lasted 2 years from graduation and left the job.
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So female incompetents will be passed just to make up numbers? Scary indeed.
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Doesn’t ‘ … they are already currently being “given a pass” in the simulator where a male colleague would be given a serious bollocking or failed … ‘ contradict ‘Surely the current regime of hiring those with the best ability … ‘?
That aside, there was a significant case a few years ago in which a woman pilot with British Airways sued the company for sexual discrimination because she was required to complete the same minimum number of flying hours as men. BA argued that the amount was the minimum necessary to maintain her safety rating for a civil airline pilot. The Commission disagreed, arguing that in treating her equally with male pilots BA had discriminated against her because her particular needs as a woman had not been met and she won the case. That means, unbelievably, that the safety of an aircraft and its passengers and crew was effectively held to be less important than the right of one woman to work when she felt like it.
Every safety feature on any form of powered conveyance was developed because people died unpleasantly. Faults and flaws can be designed out; however, there is no safeguard against compulsory incompetence and we can but guess who or what will be blamed when an aeroplane crashes because an over-promoted woman was not up to the job of piloting it safely but cannot be held responsible.
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If his company ever finds out who this airline “long haul captain” is my bet is that he won’t have a job as captain much longer. Probably make him a second under a woman.
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Unfortunately,we see the same practice in the Police and Fire Service,whereby standards are deliberately lowered to increase female participation in these sectors……it’s wrong headed,stupid and dangerous.
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What’s the safety of hundreds of lives compared with the glorious achievement of parity in another male dominated high status profession. This will go the way of doctors if it succeeds, with men having to pick up the slack of women’s unwillingness to put in the hours required.
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