ABSTRACT
Perhaps the ethical issue that has had the most lasting impact in the US concerns discrimination. Blatant racial discrimination in the domestic airline industry was rampant for many decades and continues to arise today. Although the first commercial flight with a black pilot took place between Tampa and St Petersburg, Florida in 1914, the first African-American flight crew member did not take his seat in the cockpit of a regularly scheduled major airliner until fifty years later. From the very beginning, aviation was a “white man’s game.” Persons of color were discouraged from pursuing a career in aviation for a variety of reasons, perhaps not the least of which was white America’s perception of blacks as being incapable of learning the highly complex skills necessary to fly. Even after this perception was proven to be groundless, the airlines were still afraid that bigoted white passengers would boycott any carrier that employed black pilots.
