My point isn’t that planes are racist, as I suspect you know. All I’m saying is the reason most pilots on UK airlines sound the same is because they are the same. Whenever there’s an occupation where we might have a clear cut image of what those people look or sound like (lawyers, doctors, journalists) that’s some small indication that there’s probably a diversity issue at play. You can argue it doesn’t matter, and look, I even said “sub-optimal” up there, I wasn’t trying to call anyone evil. And while race and gender are issues I was also just as much thinking about working class kids’ access to these career paths because of the enormous debts they might have to run up. I share this viewpoint with such radical leftist organisations as the British Airline Pilots’ Association.

I don't know about the UK, but in the USA, many pilots come from the military.

In the USA, if you want to learn to fly for free, rather than with "enormous debts", it's simple.

All you do is go thru the US Air Force Academy. They take black, white, male, female. They will train you for "free". Yes it requires a service commitment but it's by-and-large a meritocracy.

In the USA you're not entitled to pilot training merely for the sake of "diversity". Pay your dues, earn your way.

I had a cousin who did it. He flew jets for the US Air Force for years. He then became a commercial pilot.