More than 150 aviation camp students took off from Atlanta Tuesday on Delta Air Lines' 20th annual "Dream Flight."
The students, ages 13 to 18, boarded the Delta-sponsored flight to Pensacola, Fla. early in the morning for a day visiting the National Navy Aviation Museum, seeing the Blue Angels practice and watching an Apollo 11 film viewing.
In Atlanta, Delta co-sponsors the Aviation Career Education Academy and the more advanced Solo Flight Academy summer programs organized by the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP) for underrepresented youth interested in aviation. OBAP also holds ACE Academies in other cities across the country.
Atlanta-based Delta's chief diversity and inclusion officer Keyra Lynn Johnson said the sponsorship shows the airline "is willing to invest in something where the return is 6, 8, 10 years out," when these students may actually become professional airline pilots.
In the cockpit of the flight Tuesday morning was Delta Capt. Guy Stallworth, who coordinated the first Delta Dream Flight in 2000, and former ACE camp student Jerome Wellons, who is now a Delta pilot.
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