Contributor - Middle East

Peter Shaw-Smith

When Justin Ellixson-Andrews congratulated a prominent industry professional on winning a leadership award, the colleague responded on social media by saying: “Justin, I’m honored to call you a friend.” As executive director of the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA), based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ellixson-Andrews helps to build, support, and unite the world's LGBTQ+ aviation community.
In comparing the gay experience in the commercial and business aviation industries, he said there is little difference between the two. “Business aviation is a little slower to react to some of the advances that we’ve been able to accomplish,” he told AIN in an interview.
“We are celebrating our 25th year of awarding scholarships—flight training scholarships primarily," Ellixson-Andrews said. "This year, we’re set to award the highest figure in our history—over $500,000. This will go towards flight training, general aviation education expenses, and aviation maintenance training all across the industry. That’s our big accomplishment for the year.”
Ellixson-Andrews hopes to increase the NGPA’s scholarship program even more next year. The association is also striving to build the pipeline of new aviators with a focus on its university and flight-school chapters.
“We’re also investing more resources into our local chapters,” Ellixson-Andrews said. “The NGPA is a very grassroots organization, and we are built upon our local members doing good work in their community. We’re really proud of our network of local chapters, and we hope to see that expand even more next year with help from nationals in the form of increasing our investment in resources for local leaders.”
NGPA has chapters across three continents. “We’re in the U.S., Canada, and soon to be Mexico,” Ellixson-Andrews said. “We have chapters across Europe, as well as in Australia. The mission of NGPA is to build, support, and unite the aviation community—that doesn’t stop at any particular airline, state, country, or any other barrier. Aviation is a global industry, and so our focus is on the LGBTQ+ aviation community.”
Ellixson-Andrews said the role of NGPA executive director is a full-time, permanent position. Prior to NGPA, he held various leadership positions in talent acquisition for airlines and flight schools. He is also a private pilot.
NGPA counts 5,000 active members and 11,000 supporters in its global network. “We’ve long been increasing our network of university and local chapters, and then came our recent expansion into Europe and Australia,” he said. “We’re seeing more and more people feeling comfortable to self-disclose. That’s really the name of the game. If you feel comfortable bringing your whole self to work, then you’re going to do so. And if you’re not, you’re simply not going to go there.”
Ellixson-Andrews professes not to know how many gay business aviation pilots are active today. “I would be curious to see that number,” he said. “NGPA is the worldwide organization for that group. We have affiliates across the globe that are expanding to fill in where we don’t have an existing presence. Are there others? I would hope so. I’d like to learn more about them so that we can all work together for a shared cause.&nbsp;
“Our focus is on the LGBTQ+ aviation community across the world. We need allies now more than ever to help support and show up for our community because it is a difficult time out there, not just for the NGPA, but for all minorities. From a pure safety of flight issue, this has the potential to become critical.”

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