When a TikTok video about her career racked up millions of views last year, 66-year-old retired airline pilot and military veteran Captain Theresa Claiborne suddenly became visible to a generation that had largely never heard of her.
Claiborne has been an aviation trailblazer for decades. The Sacramento-raised aviator, who came from a military family, was commissioned as an Air Force second lieutenant in 1981 and soon became the service’s first Black woman pilot.
She went on to primarily fly the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker before embarking on a decadeslong career at United Airlines that broke the white-male mold of who becomes an airline pilot.
She spoke to Business Insider at a time when efforts to boost diversity in aviation have come under threat, and when very few Black women pursue careers as pilots, despite a need for more aviators amid an ongoing industry shortage.
The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed DEI policies for issues in roles like air traffic control and piloting, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has questioned whether military standards have been lowered to accommodate women.
Shortly after a January plane crash over Washington, DC, President Donald Trump suggested — without evidence — that DEI efforts may have been a factor. The NTSB made no mention of DEI in its preliminary report and has not yet published its final report that would include probable cause.
Claiborne called this type of messaging “damaging,” saying women and people of color bring valuable skills to aviation. She said she hopes the spotlight on her career will boost confidence for aspiring pilots.
“No airline is going to hire people just because; there’s too much responsibility,” Claiborne said. “I don’t like the chatter we’re seeing; I’m qualified and so is every other person in the flight deck — every last one of them.”
Data from the online career platform Zippia, which is compiled from federal records, shows that only 7% of US airline pilots are women. Even fewer come from minority groups: 6.9% of commercial pilots are Latino or Hispanic, and only about 1 in 40 are Black. Roughly 82% are white.
Fewer than 150 Black women in the US hold an airline transport, commercial, military, or certified flight instructor pilot’s license, according to the nonprofit organization co-founded by Claiborne in 2017 called Sisters of the Skies.
The group introduces young women of color to aviation and offers mentorship and scholarship opportunities.
Breaking glass ceilings in the US Air Force
Claiborne said earning a spot in training was “a hard road” because, at the time, the male-dominated Air Force was accepting just 10 women a year as aviators. She was selected after the program was later expanded to allow up to 30 women.
“They were testing out women to see if we could handle it — not that we hadn’t already done that in 1942 with the WASPs,” she said, referring to the Women Airforce Service Pilots who flew non-combat missions during World War II.
Claiborne said she completed a series of qualifying exams covering skills such as piloting and navigation before earning certification on the KC-135 refueling tanker.
She said she didn’t know she would make history until shortly before — a reality that she said brought intense pressure but still felt like a “pinch me” moment.
However, despite her rank and title, Claiborne said she often felt she had to prove herself each time she stepped onto the flight deck, adding that women — particularly Black women — were rarely given the same benefit of the doubt as their white male counterparts.
“There’s always going to be some bias,” Claiborne said. “But if you don’t give them a reason to think we can’t cut the mustard, then they’d have to look deep to find it.”
As of May 2024, there were about 700 female pilots in the USAF, according to the service. The USAF did not immediately respond to a request for 2025 data.
Claiborne left active duty in 1988 and continued her military career in the Air Force Reserves, serving as a flight commander and KC-135 instructor pilot before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2003.
She maintained her reserve status even after joining United.
United paid more — and didn’t come with the threat of combat
Claiborne joined United in 1990 as a flight engineer on the Boeing 727 trijet. At the time, she was one of just a few Black women pilots at the company. She retired in May 2024 as a captain on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
“When I retired, I wanted there to be at least 10 women who look like me at United, and we’ve accomplished that,” she said. “If you can see it, you can be it.”
Claiborne flew nearly every major Boeing passenger jet during her time at United — the 737, 747, 757, and 767 — with long-haul routes taking her to almost every corner of the globe. She described it as a rewarding career that was made possible by her military experience.
Claiborne said that, for her, the transition from the USAF to commercial aviation was smooth skill-wise because she already had experience flying “heavy” aircraft in the KC-135, meaning those with hefty payloads, and could handle other big Boeing planes.
The largest plane she flew — which she said was also her favorite — was the mammoth Boeing 747 double-decker: “I’m five feet two, so people would ask me, ‘How do you fly such a big airplane?'” Claiborne said. “You trim it; I would fly with my fingertips.”
Trimming refers to adjusting an aircraft’s control surfaces so it maintains a steady flight path without requiring constant pressure on the controls from the pilot.
While the technical skills carried over, Claiborne said her mission dramatically changed.
At United, the job was to fly passengers safely from point A to point B. While still requiring a niche skill set, she said the work was less complex than Air Force missions that could involve a wide range of logistical and operational objectives, including combat.
Claiborne also said airline pay was higher.
While salaries were lower in the 1990s when she started, United 787 captains — the position where Claiborne ended her career — start at about $426 an hour under the current pilot union contract. That figure does not include per diem or additional pay opportunities, like on holidays.
She added that her responsibilities largely ended once the aircraft was shut down. Aside from the occasional safety report, she said she no longer brought home the volume of paperwork required in the military, like post-flight performance evaluations and other operational reports.
Culturally, however, some challenges remained.
“People would look at me as a Black woman and think, ‘How did she get here?’ — I got here the same way everyone else did: I’m qualified; I passed the tests,” Claiborne said. “I tell young women to just be the best they can be and to fly a good airplane.”
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