NAACP lifts American Airlines advisory warning of discrimination

The NAACP announced Tuesday it is lifting a travel advisory warning black passengers against traveling with American Airlines that was put in place last year following a string of incidents the civil rights organization said showed a pattern of bias and discrimination.

The group’s president and CEO Derrick Johnson said he’s pleased with the outcomes working with American has produced so far, and although there’s still more to be done, American deserves credit for its efforts.

“(American CEO) Doug Parker and his team, everything they said they would initiate and or do, they have done,” Johnson told a gathering at the NAACP’S convention in San Antonio Tuesday morning. “We’re doing this because we have engaged in ongoing dialogues and we see a substantive plan that will be embedded in the culture of the organization and one we can measure over time.”

Parker joined Johnson at the convention and said the airline’s first instinct to the travel advisory was to circle the wagons. But during a meeting the day after the advisory, Parker said a board member urged the company to view it as an opportunity, noting “No one in corporate America is good at this, we shouldn’t pretend that we are.”

“While we’re proud of our people and our inclusion and diversity efforts … We took this as a challenge, as an opportunity, as a gift,” Parker said Tuesday. “We are not done, not anything close to it, and indeed we will never be done. We know this.”

The October advisory warned travelers, “especially African-americans,” to exercise caution and that booking with American Airlines could subject them to “disrespectful, discriminatory or unsafe conditions.”