The Nation - News from Aug. 1, 1988

The House Government Operations Committee said that fewer than 200 of the country’s 45,000 airline pilots are black and that airlines have done little to promote blacks to other professional and managerial jobs. Most blacks in the airline industry are in unskilled and semiskilled jobs, according to the report, which recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration help promote minority hiring and that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission step up its efforts. The report said qualified black pilots have had trouble getting jobs with airlines, blaming the bias partly on an “old boy” network that favors hiring white males.