Tapes of a Southwest Airlines pilot making anti-gay comments over FAA air traffic control frequencies surfaced this week just in time to cause a stir before Pride Week and, coincidentally, the lovey-dovey airline's 40th anniversary. According to the Bay Area Reporter this afternoon, the offending pilot complained about routes where most of the flight attendants are gay men and rambled on about overweight and elderly women the company employees.

The tapes landed on Fiona Ma's desk and, being a friend of the gays and "a Southwest A list preferred member" herself, the Assemblywoman from San Francisco has made alternate travel arrangements on her next flight out of SFO and called on the Dept. of General Services to do the same for other state officials.

In a statement quoted by the BAR, the Southwest Flight Attendants Union said employees were "deeply disappointed and angered by the insensitive, and unprofessional comments demeaning flight attendants that were broadcast by a Southwest pilot over frequencies used by the FAA for air traffic control on March 25, 2011." Southwest originally suspend the pilot without pay, but has since allowed him to return to work after a session of diversity training. The airline claims the incident occurred during a "private conversation" although that conversation went out over FAA airwaves, which the Union president says adds insult to injury. The Union is looking in to filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission while Ma, for her part, told the press she also intends to pursue the issue and determine whether the company has created a sexually hostile work environment.

[BAR]