Month: August 2023

New tactile signage will help people with visual disabilities better identify row numbers, seat assignments and lavatory locations independently

First Braille-equipped aircraft now flying and the airline expects to outfit entire mainline fleet by 2026

CHICAGO, August 8, 2023 /3BL/ — United recently became the first U.S. airline to add Braille to aircraft interiors, helping millions of travelers with visual disabilities more easily navigate the cabin independently. According to the Department of Transportation, about 27 million people with disabilities traveled by air in 2019.

The airline currently has equipped about a dozen aircraft with Braille markings for individual rows and seat numbers as well as inside and outside the lavatories. United expects to outfit its entire mainline fleet with Braille by the end of 2026.

“Finding your seat on a plane or getting to the restroom is something most of us take for granted, but for millions of our customers, it can be a challenge to do independently,” said Linda Jojo, Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Officer for United. “By adding more tactile signage throughout our interiors, we’re making the flying experience more inclusive and accessible, and that’s good for everyone.”

In addition to adding Braille, United is working with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the American Council of the Blind (ACB) and other disability advocacy groups to explore the use of other tactile navigational aids throughout the cabin such as raised letters, numbers and arrows.

“We applaud United for taking an important step toward making its aircraft more accessible to blind passengers,” said NFB President Mark Riccobono. “The flight experience is often frustrating for a number of reasons, one of which is the amount of information that is available exclusively through printed signs and other visual indicators. We hope to continue working with United to explore additional ways to make flying more accessible and less stressful for blind passengers.”

For the eighth-straight year, United was recognized as a Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion and earned a top score on the Disability Equality Index benchmarking tool, a joint initiative of the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN, to advance the inclusion of people with disabilities.

“United is taking additional steps to create an accessible airline passenger experience through braille signage,” said ACB Interim Executive Director Dan Spoone. “We appreciate the airline’s continued exploration of additional in-flight navigational aids like large print and tactile indicators, and we encourage all airlines to follow United’s lead in making air travel more inclusive for the blind and low vision community.”

The rollout of Braille to mainline aircraft over the next few years is the latest way United has worked to create accessible solutions for its customers and employees:

The United mobile app was recently redesigned to make it easier to use for people with visual disabilities with increased color contrast, more space between graphics and reordering how information is displayed and announced to better integrate with the screen reader technologies like VoiceOver and TalkBack. 
 United’s Inflight Seatback Entertainment screens offer a wide range of accessible features such as closed captioning, text-to-speech controls, magnification, explore-by-touch capabilities, audio-described movies, and adjustable and high-contrast text and color correction. As part of United Next, the airline’s historic growth plan, the carrier expects to take delivery of about 700 new narrow and widebody aircraft by the end of 2032, all of which will include the latest in seatback screen entertainment options. 
 Through Bridge, United’s Business Resource Group for people of all abilities, employees help create a workplace environment where all can strive to achieve their maximum potential and support our commitment to being an ally for customers with disabilities. 
 United’s long-standing partnership with Special Olympics provides employment opportunities to athletes through the Special Olympics Service Ambassador program, a workforce development initiative that provides a forum to work alongside Airport Operations and Customer Service teams to assist customers. The airline also supports Special Olympics through volunteerism, fundraising and travel support to attend national and international competitions.

About United

At United, Good Leads The Way. With U.S. hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., United operates the most comprehensive global route network among North American carriers and is now the largest airline in the world as measured by available seat miles. For more about how to join the United team, please visit www.united.com/careers and more information about the company is at www.united.com. United Airlines Holdings, Inc., the parent company of United Airlines, Inc., is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “UAL”.

Originally published in FedEx’s 2023 ESG Report

As a global business, we value the diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences of our people and recognize DEI is essential to our success and the communities we serve. DEI fosters collaboration, enables us to recruit, retain, and develop a talented workforce, and underpins our business performance and sustainability. The continued integration of DEI into our business strategies and progress towards our DEI objectives supported our ability to respond to the challenging labor market our industry faced in recent years. We are proud of the work our people accomplished over the past year but understand there is always more to be done.

FedEx has a long-standing commitment to fully embrace DEI throughout our organization, from the Board of Directors to every employee. This commitment is communicated through our DEI framework and our four strategic pillars: Our People; Our Education and Engagement; Our Communities, Customers, and Suppliers; and Our Story. We use this framework to influence and inform our business strategy as we invest in our workforce, culture, and communities.

Our people 

We understand the importance of actively recruiting, developing, and retaining our diverse talent. One of the most important outcomes of our DEI efforts is to grow and advance the gifted group of individuals that comprise FedEx.

Over the past year, we continued to roll out programs to ensure our people are engaged and can develop at FedEx. The FedEx Ground workforce career track program, Purple Pathways, directly targets our most diverse population, frontline managers and package handlers, to support their career growth. FedEx Ground won the American Transportation Association DEI Change Leader Award in 2022 for Purple Pathways. We are inspired to see over 33,000 team members registered in the program, with more than 1,700 Purple Pathways mentors. The OnDeck program, launched by FedEx Express, provides our front-line workers with the training and skills they need to grow into managerial roles.

In FY22, FedEx participated in a variety of employment events, including partnering with the Society of Women Engineers, the National Black MBA Association, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to expand our talent pool, increase hires from diverse populations, and establish FedEx as a positive ambassador for DEI. At FedEx Express AMEA, we set a DEI objective to increase the number of team members with disabilities by 5%. FedEx is part of the Tent Coalition for Refugees in the U.S. and has set goals for hiring refugees for roles with the company nationwide.

See the Data appendix and our EEO-1 Reports for statistics on workplace gender, race/ethnicity, and generational diversity.

Our education and engagement 

We foster ongoing employee engagement and provide educational opportunities to build an inclusive working environment and help our people succeed. We strive to promote DEI and maintain open dialogue across all levels of the company.

We work to expand our team members’ DEI knowledge through various learning opportunities. We recently introduced a DEI competency program for all our officers and directors. Through this program, enabled by the FedEx Learning Center, more than 87% of our FedEx Logistics managers, directors, and officers completed four DEI courses. In 2022, all FedEx Office leaders and key HR employees completed a year-long Inclusive Leadership program to address critical DEI topics. FedEx Express continued the Convene program, a virtual mentorship program between four vice president-level diversity sponsors and other team members. Across our operating companies, we offer a micro-learning platform to deliver digestible DEI content for all career levels.

Team members can participate in business resource teams, employee networks, and affinity groups to enhance DEI, build community, and inspire conversations across our operating companies. These groups include: Women in Leadership, Black Professionals Network, Hispanic Action Network, AllGenerations, Multi-Ethnic Leadership Community, Asian Network, Women Leading Change, LGBT & Friends, U.S. Military Veterans, Growing Professionals, Parents Working Together, EnABLE Network, Men Leading Inclusively, and Multi-Faith Network, among others. In FY22, FedEx Logistics launched its first business resource team, Women in Logistics, with plans to launch additional resource groups next year.

We include DEI-related questions in our FedEx Services, FedEx Ground, and FedEx Freight engagement surveys, allowing us to accurately capture employee perspectives on DEI within the FedEx workforce. The results from these surveys show that open dialogue regarding diversity and inclusion has improved since 2021. DEI metrics were added to FedEx Ground’s performance management system to ensure intentional focus and engagement on DEI for all team members.

Our communities, customers, and suppliers 

DEI must extend further than our people and our business. We are committed to investing in the communities, customers, and suppliers we serve. In FY22, we contributed $5.7 million to various non-profits aligned with our DEI commitment to increase equity in the communities we serve. We work with community partners, including the National Action Network, and sponsor events, such as the Rise Up and Memphis Proud Exhibits at the Memphis Museum of Science and History, to strengthen our position as a positive community ambassador.

In FY22, we provided over $800,000 for leadership development programs in the U.S., mainly through our seven scholarship funds. We also support endowed scholarships at eight HBCUs where we are expanding opportunities for students through a $5 million multi-year contribution to prepare students for the workforce. In FY22 we launched the FedEx-HBCU Student Ambassador Program, which provides empowerment, engagement, and education for students, and access to resources that will help them prepare to enter the workforce after college. Additionally, FedEx Ground launched the College Pathways Career Expose with seven HBCUs in February 2022. The College Pathways program exposes students to career opportunities in specific fields that align with their studies and provides students insights on real career experiences.

We work to recruit diverse candidates and develop a talent pipeline to build a workforce reflective of the communities we serve. We work to improve the inclusivity of our recruitment process by offering materials in Spanish and English. FedEx Logistics hosts the FedEx Logistics Academy, a program designed to introduce high school students to a variety of career paths as well as provide interactive lessons on teamwork and workplace culture. FedEx Freight expanded “The Boardroom Experience” program, which introduces students of color to career possibilities at FedEx through a simulated Board meeting. FedEx Express AMEA partnered with the Asian University for Women to provide mentorship for female students from various countries in Asia and the Middle East. FedEx Services implements the College Connections program to improve recruiting efforts with colleges near main FedEx Services hubs. FedEx Ground proactively recruits from its High School Pathways program, which teaches students about different roles within FedEx Ground, including tips on networking, interviewing, and mentoring. The FedEx Express HBCU Student Co-op Program is designed to attract, develop, and retain diverse talent. Students focus on project-based assignments directly related to their academic degree and gain mentoring and networking opportunities with FedEx staff, including executive management.

As a global business, we have the power to support a diverse supplier base. See the Our supply chain section for information on our Supplier Diversity program.

Our story 

Throughout FedEx, we encourage team members to share their stories, celebrate their differences, and foster collaboration. We provide team members with DEI-related resources, events, and employee stories through our enterprisewide online platform, the DEI Depot. In FY22, FedEx Logistics circulated communications for 15 significant cultural moments and FedEx Ground launched the Story Depot to collect and share a variety of employee success stories. Across FedEx Corporate, FedEx Logistics, FedEx Express, FedEx Freight, FedEx Ground, and FedEx Services, we circulate a quarterly DEI newsletter, which provides managers and officers with resources, information, and best practices to ensure they effectively promote DEI throughout their teams.

Key links 

FedEx Cares 

DEI | FedEx Cares 

EEO-1 Reports

Compensation and Human Resources Committee Charter

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