Aviation Week Network's Lee Ann Shay speaks with Doug Parker, former American Airlines chairman and CEO, who has launched a non-profit called Breaking Down Barriers to recruit and train diverse pilots. Listen in as Doug explains their action plan and how they hope to impact the aviation industry.

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To read a portion of Doug Parker and Lee Ann Shay’s SWSX conversation on March 17, 2022, please click here.

Rush Transcript

Lee Ann Shay:

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for Window Seat, Aviation Week's Air Transport podcast. I'm Lee Ann Shay, Aviation Week's Executive Editor for MRO and Business Aviation. Welcome aboard. This week I'm delighted to be joined by an industry icon, former American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker. Doug retired as CEO the end of March 2022, and as chairman a year later in April. Doug, thank you so much for joining Window Seat. It's great to be talking with you again.

Doug Parker:

Thanks, Lee Ann. It's nice to be talking to you as well.

Lee Ann Shay:

Thank you, thank you. Our subject today is an important one, addressing the staffing shortage in aviation by breaking down barriers. Doug, this podcast is a great follow-up to our conversation at SXSW about two years ago, right before you retired as CEO. When you said that, when I asked you, "Hey, what are you going to do afterwards?" You said, "Well, I've been advised to just take a little time off. I'm going to have lunch with Gwen and figure out what I want to do."

So fast-forward to now you're launching an initiative, but before we start talking about that, I want to point out one thing that you said during that SXSW conversation. We covered a lot of topics, but one that I thought was particularly interesting was supporting diversity. And at the time, American Airlines was hoping to hire 18,000 pilots that year, which seemed like such a huge number. And you said, quote, "We want to make certain that we're getting the best people and when barriers exist to the best being able to be in that pool, we're not going to have the best of the best. So I think it's important for all of us to work to pull down barriers that keep some of the best from being able to succeed." Now, a couple of weeks ago you launched Breaking Down Barriers. Tell us about its mission and why you decided to do this post-retirement.

Doug Parker:

I like it when things I said two years ago turned out to be turned out to be exactly what I still think and what we're working on. So that's great, thanks for reminding me of that. Anyway, what I said then is what I believe now and why we're doing this. The industry does indeed need pilots, we all know that. What I know is the industry's going to get those pilots. It's just too compelling of an opportunity and there are enough people out there that are capable of doing it and will figure out a way to get the training.

But what I know is it's not accessible to everyone unfortunately because unlike a college education, which you can get federal assistance for, there's no assistance really available to get what's required, the training that's required to become a pilot. It's really expensive, it can be up to $100,000 dollars to get the training one needs to become a pilot. So what happens of course is then people that can't afford that or don't have any imagination that they could possibly be able to access that don't ever even consider it. So that's a barrier. That's a financial barrier that exists to some, not to all. What that means is those who have it, those with the high potential that are able to do this don't get to compete in the pool. So we don't have the best of the best.

So I don't think that's right and I don't think any of us really think that's right. I think that's what we all want to do is make sure that we're getting the very best. And so I think we should work to tear barriers like that down. That's what our nonprofit is trying to do. Starting out small, we can talk more about how I think it's going to get bigger over time, but what we're going to do is starting here in Dallas, provide the funding that's necessary for individuals like that that have the capabilities, that have the intellect and the desire to be a pilot, give them the financial resource they need, give them the support they need and everything they need along the way and the awareness that they can do this.

Lee Ann Shay:

So why did you choose this focus, pilots? You could have done anything, why this?

Doug Parker:

It seems like the biggest opportunity, frankly, there are others of course, and mechanics, coders, IT developers, there are all sorts of opportunities like this, but I think this is the largest one, pilots. Again, it's the highest paid of those by farm for good reason, it's an incredibly noble profession that requires great training and the ability to get through that training. But when you do so, it's certainly the one that has the most lucrative pay. It also happens to be the one that has the least diversity, again, I think due to our history as a country. But it's less than 3% of commercial pilots are Black, less than half of 1% are female Black pilots. We should all be embarrassed by it, I certainly am.

And the result therefore is we know we can't be having the best of the best if those numbers are in place. And what happens also is those people that live in communities that are largely Black don't see anybody that looks like them as pilots. They don't think it's an opportunity that exists for them. That's not true, we need to make them understand that those have the desire and the capabilities to do so can do it, and we want to make that happen. They should have the same access to these opportunities as others. And the pilot profession seems like the one with both the most upside and the most and the least diversity.

Lee Ann Shay:

You're right, there are a lot of barriers and the financial one is huge. You and your wife, Gwen, are both involved in Breaking Down Barriers. How are you running it and what kind of community input are you seeking? Are you looking for volunteers, financial support?

Doug Parker:

Well, we've started with financial support, so we're not out doing fundraising right now. That's our contribution as we get it started. Hopefully we'll get bigger and we'll be able to raise more funds as needed. And we've hired an amazing CEO, it's a woman named Dana Donati, who you may know, she ran United's Aviate program and she has a passion for this and she's now working with us as our CEO. She's doing great things for us. We have everything in place to go thanks to Dana, the nonprofit is in place. We have relationships with schools. What we need to do now is go find the students.

One thing that I like about what we're doing is if you go to our website, there's no place to apply. We're not seeking applications, we'd have thousands of them and we'd work through them and find the best candidates. That's not what we're trying to do. We're going to go look in the communities for the individuals who have no idea this exists. If we just put up a website and ask people to apply, those are people who already know this is something that may be available to them. What we think is really important is going and finding people who have no idea this can exist, these opportunities exist and they are available to them. If they find that inspiring, we want to help them.

So that's where we're now is now we need to go identify students. That's frankly going to be the hard part. We have to get into these communities. To do that, we have an amazing board in place, but a couple in particular are two individuals that run two of the biggest nonprofits here in Dallas in the Black community, one at For Oak Cliff and one at Big Thought. These are local charities, but these are great individuals that are going to help us get access to these young adults and let us give a pitch and find those that really want to do this.

Lee Ann Shay:

That sounds awesome. Si I know you're a metrics person, you have a financial background, what kind of impact are you hoping to have short-term, long-term?

Doug Parker:

Yeah, thanks. I don't know if I can give you metrics, but I can tell you what I think. Again, we hope to have by the end of this quarter, let's say 10 individuals we've identified that we're going to go get started in school. Hopefully two to three years from now, they will be working as commercial pilots for airlines. That's going to change their lives. And as their lives are changed, and by the way, that first class will be followed by several other classes, they will help mentor the other classes, and what will happen is they'll come back into their communities. It's going to be part of what we ask them to do in exchange for what we're doing for them, is to make sure that they give back into their communities and they'll be going back into their communities. Others in the community will now see people that look like them that are pilots. I think that's going to make an enormous difference. It's not just going to be for the individuals that go through this program, but for the communities in which they live.

And I think that has huge potential impact. Again, not just for this profession, not just for these people, but for others in the community to see that there are opportunities like this that exist. And I think that's how you really change the communities is having the individuals that are in the communities be able to achieve the full potential that exists within them. And unfortunately, they don't have the same opportunities as some other high potential people do, but I believe that when given the opportunity, they'll show that potential and achieve it and go back and make a huge difference in their communities. So I think this can be really big. Certainly I expect being bigger than Dallas over time. I think it'll make a difference in the communities that we serve and we're going to serve as many as we can, and as we noted before, probably branch out in some other professions as well.

Lee Ann Shay:

That sounds good. So first pilots and then mechanics, or do you have a tiered outline of this or is it one step at a time?

Doug Parker:

One step at a time right now? Yeah, but you can see it. I mean, what I've really been struck by so far is the outreach we've gotten. I just make an Instagram post and say, "We're going to start this," and so many people reaching out who have had similar thoughts, who want to help, who want to volunteer, who think this can make an enormous difference in their communities. So I know the demand is enormous, but what we want to do is learn first. We're going to start small, learn first. I think we'll learn fast , I think we'll move fast. I know that, for example, if I said I wanted to go start this in Chicago tomorrow, we could go do that. There are people there who would fund it, and there are people there that want us to go do it, but we can't do that yet. We're going to start here, get this going and make sure we know what we're doing and get our feet under us, and then we'll move to other places.

Lee Ann Shay:

This sounds really exciting, Doug. I think it sounds like we should be having a conversation in about six months and see how this is all kicking off.

Doug Parker:

Please, I'd love to. Yeah, and thanks for doing it now. I mean, this helps us, again, not that we're out looking for funding or anything, but what we do need is awareness. And so like I say, we're going to go into these communities and try and find these young adults, but the more the merrier, and if others feel inspired by it, that'd be fantastic and I know it can be done and we're going to improve it.

Lee Ann Shay:

Absolutely. And you said that people have been reaching out to you via social media posts, but if someone is listening to this Window Seat podcast and they have an idea, like somebody in their community or an outreach to you, how should they contact the organization, through your website? Or what's the best way?

Doug Parker:

Yeah, the website, breakingdownbarriers.org or straight to [email protected]. Send us a note.

Lee Ann Shay:

That sounds good. Well, Doug, thank you so much and congratulations on launching this. I hope it is successful. 

Doug Parker:

Thank you, Lee Ann. You're helping with this, so we appreciate it.

Lee Ann Shay:

And thank you also to our producer Corey Hitt, and of course, thank you to our listeners. Make sure you don't miss us each week by subscribing to the Window Seat podcast on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. And until next week, this is Lea Ann Shay disembarking from Window Seat.