Sacked Virgin Australia Flight Attendant Who Drank Prosecco at Christmas Party Then Worked a Flight Less Than Eight Hours Later Wins His Job Back

A Virgin Australia flight attendant who was sacked for drinking a glass of prosecco at a work Christmas party and having casual sex with a hookup at one of the airline’s layover hotels has won his job back after an employment tribunal concluded that the reasons for terminating his employment were “mystifying.”

Dylan Macnish filed his claim with the Australian FairWork Commission shortly after he was dismissed by the airline earlier this year over allegations that he had breached Virgin Australia’s drug and alcohol policy, as well as its fatigue management procedures.

Macnish was hired by Virgin Australia in July 2022, and during his time in training, he told the tribunal that he had taught about the airline’s drug and alcohol policy and the requirement to refrain from drinking alcohol within eight hours of reporting for duty.

However, Macnish was under the impression that the eight-hour rule was more of a guideline and that cabin crew could go below this time limit so long as they had no alcohol in their system by the time they reported for work.

The eight-hour rule had not been an issue until December 2023, when Macnish attended an afternoon work Christmas party with a colleague. On arriving at the party, Macnish says he had just one glass of prosecco but abstained from drinking any more alcohol because he was with a friend who wasn’t having anything to drink.

That friend was rostered to work a late-report red eye flight and after the party, Macnish received a message from his friend saying that the flight was one crew member down.

Macnish volunteered to work the flight, although he says he first checked Virgin Australia’s policy documents to check that he was allowed to work given the fact he had drunk a glass of prosecco.

Despite searching the manual, Macnish couldn’t find anything about the eight-hour rule, but he did use a home breathalyzer which showed he had no alcohol in his system.

Feeling confident that he wasn’t in breach of any rules, Macnish reported for the flight just seven and half hours after drinking the glass of prosecco.

In the following days after the flight, a rumor started circulating that Macnish had operated the flight while drunk or hungover, and he decided to address the matter with a manager.

Rather than offering Macnish support, Virgin Australia placed him under investigation and referred to several other incidents to justify his dismissal.

In one case earlier in 2023, Macnish had reported fatigued before an early morning flight from Brisbane to Perth after dealing with a serious medical incident in the airport. After he called in fatigued, Macnish then hooked up with someone using the gay dating app Grindr for casual sex in his hotel room.

Virgin Australia pulled surveillance camera footage and room card swipe records to prove he had invited someone into his room, although Macnish says he hoped the hookup would take his mind off prior events and help him get some sleep.

In the FairWork Commission judgment against Virgin Australia, the commissioner highlighted the fact that what happened in private between consenting adults should be of no interest to the airline and that if a straight married man had sex with his wife in similar circumstances, it would be unlikely to raise eyebrows.

Although the commissioner concluded that Macnish had, indeed, breached Virgin Australia’s drug and alcohol policy, he found that this was not, in itself, reason to terminate Macnish’s employment.

As a result, the commission found that Macnish had been unfairly dismissed and despite Virgin Australia’s protests, the airline has been ordered to rehire him as a member of cabin crew.

Last year, Virgin Australia won an appeal against a FairWork Commission ruling that ordered the airline to rehire a flight attendant terminated for napping during a flight and watching a movie while she should have been working.

The original court ruled that despite numerous and “strongly termed” adverse findings against the flight attendant, her dismissal was “harsh, unjust and unreasonable” because of mitigating circumstances, including her long service with the airline.

Virgin Australia was allowed to appeal the ruling and a new ruling concluded that the flight attendant’s many years of service with Virgin Australia did not outweigh her “unsatisfactory conduct”.