Delta Airlines announced on Tuesday that it will begin providing members of its flight crews diversity training after the airline received heavy criticism after an involving prejudice in October 2016.
In the October incident passengers said they were discriminated against or treated uncivilly on its flights. Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian banned a passenger for life in November after the man was videotaped yelling in support of Donald Trump. A few weeks earlier, the carrier had apologized to a black doctor who volunteered to help a sick passenger and was rebuffed by a flight attendant.
According to the media reports, officials from Delta stated that the diversity training became mandatory for all executives last year and around 23,000 flight attendants would go through the same training starting in Spring 2017.
Delta Airlines spokesman Brian Kruse said that, as part of Delta’s ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts, the airline launched inclusion training four months ago for Delta leaders. He also added that, cultural sensitivity training has long been part of Delta’s flight crew curriculum.
The announcement form Delta also comes after the U.S. Department of Transportation issued new regulations on how to not discriminate against passengers on the basis of race, colour, national origin, religion, sex or ancestry in air travel.
American Airlines requires flight attendants to attend a “refresher” course every two years; Southwest Airlines mandates that new hires attend anti-discrimination and anti-harassment courses; and United Airlines requires all employees who interact with customers to receive recurrent diversity training. Kruse says Delta has been doing some type of diversity training for over 15 years.
