ALPA@Work: ALPA Committee Chairs Promote Diversity, Inclusion

By Kevin Cuddihy, Contributing Writer

Members from multiple ALPA national committees and approximately 20 ALPA pilot groups joined the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA) in mid-August to show their support for and engage with the next generation of airline pilots at the first NGPA Diversity & Inclusion Summit. Continuing the conversation about diversity and nondiscrimination in the cockpit was F/O Richard Swindell (United), chair of ALPA’s Professional Development Group; F/O Kandy Bernskoetter (FedEx Express), chair of ALPA’s Membership Committee; and Capt. John Rosenberg (Delta), chair emeritus of ALPA’s Professional Standards Committee.

Swindell noted that the Association’s three main reasons for attending the summit were safety, pilot supply, and cultural change. “Any form of discrimination or prejudice can cause a communication breakdown that can trigger a degradation of operational safety,” he said, observing that increasing the diversity of airline pilots could help overcome discrimination and increase the number of potential pilots. “ALPA is encouraging the best and brightest to consider a career in aviation as an airline pilot,” Swindell commented. “By demonstrating that this is an open and inclusive industry and profession, it encourages more people to enter our ranks and increase the available pool of pilots in North America,” he said. “As an Association, we must acknowledge and understand corporate and flight deck demographic changes, as well as our own membership cultural changes. It’s important to understand what these changes mean to our industry, our profession, and our union.”

Bernskoetter pointed out that attending events like the NGPA summit dovetails with ALPA’s strategic plan by helping to build unity and advance a diversified workforce today and in the future.

The event included presentations from pilots, small-group discussions, and an open conversation about inclusion, diversity, and discrimination. “The authenticity of the participants was really powerful,” said Bernskoetter. “Hearing their stories and experiences gave me a further understanding of, empathy for, and acceptance of what they’ve had to deal with.”

Bernskoetter was enthused to see such a wide variety of ALPA participation at the event. “There was a great collection of airlines and a huge ALPA presence,” she said. “The big airlines, fee-for-departures, and Canadian carriers attended the event—both management and pilots. It was great to see so many ALPA faces addressing the issues and participating.”

Rosenberg discussed the shared goals of the two associations and explained how working together can benefit pilots and the industry. He noted that many pilots in attendance seemed to have a misconception about how professional standards committees work. “We were able to educate them,” he explained, “on the breadth of Professional Standards and how much it can help. When you sit in the cockpit, we’re all wearing the same uniform as a professional pilot. If you have an issue, we’ll address it just like we would for anyone else.”

Rosenberg also spoke about the training videos the NGPA offered to all summit attendees and about ALPA potentially using them for Professional Standards purposes, saying they were “absolutely, without question” valuable. “We’re discussing developing a module on inclusiveness and awareness.”

One of the NGPA’s major goals in hosting the event was to communicate the importance of messaging, according to F/O David Pettet (American), NGPA’s executive director. “We discussed ways to communicate both with pilots and with management. We encouraged people to talk about it—to be open about it,” he explained. “It becomes a much more inclusive environment.

“Our desire was to have ALPA involved at the national level because it comes back to messaging,” said Pettet. “We wanted ALPA to contribute to the discussion, be part of the conversation, and help guide the implementation of any ideas. We need to all collectively work on this industrywide issue together.”

“We’re constantly looking for opportunities to engage throughout the industry to promote diversity and inclusion within the airline piloting profession,” said Swindell, “Events such as the NGPA summit, Oshkosh, the Women in Aviation conference, and the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals conference provide ALPA with a distinct opportunity to engage with our members and potential future members of the Association.”


To find out how you can promote diversity and inclusion in the cockpit, contact www.ngpa.org.

This article was originally published in the October 2017 issue of Air Line Pilot.

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