In a recently resurfaced video, Kirby can be seen bragging about the airline's diversity initiatives. In the interview, he spoke about keeping white men out of their graduating pilot classes, saying: “We have committed that 50% of the classes will be women or people of color.”
“Today, only 19% of our pilots are women or people of color,” he said, lamenting the fact that there are too many white males in the airline industry.
He said that he was “proud” of their diversity efforts and added that they have been making a point of including women and minorities in their interviewing process.
The finance news account Wall Street Silver said on X that people should “think twice” about flying with United given their leader’s priorities.
“Anyone who thinks DEI (racism) should play any role in hiring, that person needs to be removed from the process. The board of directors should terminate the CEO immediately and focus on safety and only safety,” they wrote.
CEO seen dressing in drag as airline sponsors drag shows
It’s clear his focus is not where it should be, and the Libs of TikTok account recently shared footage of him that explains a lot about where his priorities are. Introducing a series of photos in which he can be seen dancing while dressed in women’s clothes, they wrote: “This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of @united. He likes to dress up in drag. United hired a drag queen to be their CEO and now United has turned their focus to incorporating drag into their business and sponsoring drag shows.”
In the photos, Kirby and other employees are seen partying while dressed in drag. United also sponsored several Denver Pride events and called on employees, friends and families to take part.
Kirby accused of purging religious employees with United's COVID-19 vaccine policy
Kirby is no stranger to controversy; he also came under fire for how he handled COVID-19 vaccine mandates. He was accused of essentially carrying out a purging of religious employees by denying exemptions based on religion. A lawsuit filed against the company claims that he also attempted to shame employees by proposing requiring any “accommodated employees to walk around with special stickers on their badges broadcasting vaccination states.” Internal documents showed that United’s lawyers and some HR employees balked at Kirby’s proposal.
In another incident, he was forced to issue an apology after he took a private jet from New York to Denver on the same day that United canceled 750 flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
“Taking a private jet was the wrong decision because it was insensitive to our customers who were waiting to get home,” said the exec, who earns a salary of around $10 million.
Trying to fix the PR damage, he vowed "to better demonstrate my respect for the dedication of our team members and the loyalty of our customers."
The move was also criticized because Kirby has described himself as a “climate change geek” and has said he wants to make United Airlines “100 percent green” by next year.
Boeing and FAA also making risky pushes for diversity
A push for diversity is being seen across the aviation industry, with Boeing recently changing its bonus structure for executives to reward diversity hiring instead of meeting safety goals.
In addition, the FAA was recently exposed for actively recruiting employees who have “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric issues and other types of physical and mental conditions as part of a DEI hiring initiative laid out on their website. They claim that “diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”
This is certainly not the criteria that anyone who values their life wants the agency to focus on when hiring people who control our nation’s civil aviation.
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