SAA Cadet Program update

SAA has reportedly stopped automatically rejecting applications from white candidates. This was announced on Friday afternoon, after several rejected candidates sought legal action against SAA. 

The deadline has also been extended until 31 August to accommodate those young and hopeful candidates whose applications were rejected solely on the colour of their skin.

I hope however, that this does not mean applicants will be filtered out at a different stage based upon their skin colour. One comment on the Fin24 website however suggested that now SAA would now have to accept at least one white cadet, in order to prove that the application process was not biased.

If anybody reading this is interested in applying to SAA for the cadet program, details are here. Good luck.

SAA announcement causes turbulence

I came across this story yesterday stating that the South African Airways (SAA) spokesperson Kabelo Ledwaba had told Beeld (local Afrikaans newspaper) that SAA was no longer accepting applications from white candidate pilots, in order to 'bring pilot demographics in line with the country's broader demographics.'

Estimates of the current pilot demographics of SAA are quoted as, 'Only 15% of SAA's pilots are currently black, and this includes Indians and coloureds. The rest are white, and 91% of them are men.' 

This made me wonder does the '91% of them are men' refer to SAA pilots as a whole, or only the white ones? If the former, then SAA shouldn't be taking any applications from men in order to get their demographics 'in line with the country's broader demographics.' While data from the 2011 census is still be tallied, the most recent report from Statistics South Africa estimates that 52% of the South African population is female (p. 2). 

I'm having a guess that the ratio of male to female black pilots is not 50:50 either. 

Many have jumped up and down, claiming that this new policy by SAA is 'reverse racism,' but the use of the term alone implies a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of racism. (I could go off on a tangent here about what racism is, and that 'reverse racism' in fact does not exist, but I'll save that for later.) 

While the cadet pilot applications are being screened according to one's race, Ledwaba is attributed as saying that 'the airline would appoint male, white pilots when there were vacant posts for which applicants of other races could not be found.' So white men are still eligible for future positions, they'll just need to be fully qualified, have a lot of flying hours, and possible have to accept a lower ranking/ paying job to start off with. 

The whole justification by SAA that they are employing these screening measures as 'an initiative to bring pilot demographics in line with the country's broader demographics' is a bit laughable. As a closing thought, does that imply that the police need to start arresting more white women and putting them in prison in order to bring  prison demographics in line with that of the country? Should more women take an interest in supporting soccer to bring the soccer fan demographics in line with that of the country? Should more black men take an interest in racing yachts to bring sailing supporter demographics in line with that of the country? While these examples may seem ridiculous, the purpose is to show just how ridiculous basing any demographic to be 'in line with that of the country' actually is.

Surely a better solution from SAA would be to encourage more aspiring cadets of colour to apply, through recruitment drives similar to those practiced by foreign military branches.