Air Canada Becomes '2 Spirit' With 2SLGBTQIA+ Flight

www.mrctv.org

This is your captain speaking; today’s forecast includes clouds with a high chance of gender ideology.

Air Canada recently made headlines for proudly announcing its all-2SLGBTQIA+ flight crew. And boy, did this lead to some turbulence.

They released a corporate-produced video promoting the announcement, featuring lines like “We’re living a historical moment today…a watershed moment in Canadian history” and ending with a glittery “Shantay you all stay,” a RuPaul’s Drag Race reference.

For anyone wondering, “Shantay, you stay” is what RuPaul says to a drag queen who isn’t going home. Cute on TV. Weird on a flight.  Because let’s be honest, when I board a plane, the last thing I want to hear is that I’m not going home.

Look, my requirements for an airline are simple:

  • Get me there safely 
  • Preferably on time
  • Don’t lose my bags 

    • That’s it. What a pilot or flight crew does in their private life? None of my business. But what is my business: whether or not they can fly the plane.

    But Air Canada seems more focused on checking diversity boxes than actually improving an airline experience that isn't exactly sky-high (pun intended).

    According to Yahoo Finance, Air Canada ranks near the bottom in customer satisfaction among North American airlines. They also have a 3.0-star rating on TripAdvisor with over 32,000 online reviews.

    You’d think a company with that kind of track record might want to focus on improving the flying experience. Instead, they’ve blocked replies on X due to the video's backlash. Because nothing says “customer care” like silencing customer feedback.

    And this isn’t Air Canada’s first blunder. Just a few months ago, in March 2025, they came under fire for erasing Israel from some in-flight maps, labeling the region as "Palestinian territories." Only after backlash did they issue an apology and blame a third-party supplier, the usual corporate dodge.

    On its website, Air Canada proudly promotes its status as one of Canada's best diversity employers and its membership in the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. That's fine. But when diversity becomes the only focus, and core performance slips through the cracks, it's not progress — it's PR.

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