James Bushe: After I was diagnoses with HIV my life really changed, I realised my dream to become a pilot

It has been quite the journey. An emotional and real one. There was plenty of turbulence. We expected more delays. But – thanks to Terrence Higgins Trust and other HIV organisations – everything landed perfectly.
 
For those watching the BBC Three show Sky High Club, you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm proud to say I am the first newly qualified pilot openly living with HIV, but the process has been arduous. Without the support of HIV organisations, and those who donate and support those HIV organisations, my dream would have gone unfulfilled.

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As a child, I wanted little more than to be a pilot. I was lucky I guess, to know what I wanted to do. So many of my friends in their 30s still don’t know what they want to do when they grow up! But as I embarked on my training journey, my HIV got in the way. Or more accurately, an outdated set of views and rules about my HIV stood in the way. But these rules were just that – outdated. They were wrong. They were unjust.
 
I set about trying to change these rules and get justice for myself and others living with HIV. Through 2017 and 2018, we campaigned tirelessly. With huge credit to HIV Scotland, the British HIV Association, Terrence Higgins Trust and National AIDS Trust, my story was everywhere. Debated on TV, in the Holyrood and Westminister parliaments, and on the pages of our broadsheets and red tops. Eventually, our coalition for change won. I was allowed to meet my childhood dreams. It looked like plain/plane sailing – excuse the pun!
 
As the new rules were implemented, things unravelled. I was able to fly but only as First Officer, never to fly alone or as Captain. In addition, as I and others joined the ranks of pilots, those who had been living with the virus and been pilots during their years of an unjust and indefensible ban were at risk of punishment for coming forward. Pilots living with HIV were either second class or living in fear.

So I contacted the team at Terrence Higgins Trust and they got to work. The policy team, along with BHIVA, and NAT, pushed the issue. Their Chief Executive Ian Green took us to meet the Civil Aviation Authority. Together we won every change we asked for.

Because of all of them – and all of you for supporting these amazing organisations – I am now the first pilot living with HIV to have a full pilot’s licence with no medical restrictions. Because of our work, others are following in my footsteps. Because of everything we have done, a future aspiring pilot living with HIV will not even know that just a few months ago they would have been restricted and just a few years ago they would have been banned. Those rules, like their equivalents in the military, have been consigned to the dustbin of history. I could not be happier.
 
I not only have you, and my family and friends to thank, but the lovely people at Logan Air. You'll see on the BBC programme what amazing colleagues I have, and standing behind them are hundreds and thousands more who have been willing us on and wishing us well, the leadership team in particular.
 
At the nub of this victory is that HIV has changed – effective treatment means not only that I can't pass on the virus, but that the virus is no longer attacking my immune system. Too many respected organisations and industries once wrote down rules that may have been right for the time they were written but have dated badly. These rules, it seems, are easier to write than reform, let alone remove. But in the HIV sector – and Terrence Higgins Trust in particular – there are skilled people who know how to win the arguments and change the system.

Together we can end HIV-related stigma. Whether it is by attending protests, such as the Fighting HIV Stigma and Proud march happening on 1 October 2022, or by donating to this fabulous organisation – every action counts.

  • James Bushe is a pilot for Logan Air, the first person living with HIV to hold a full pilot's licence and no medicinal restrictions and features in BBC Three’s Sky High Club. The episode about James airs on Thursday 1 September and is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.