A discrimination employment tribunal case against British Airways over its handling of a cabin crew restructure during the COVID-19 pandemic began this week. This landmark case could have major repercussions for companies across the United Kingdom.
The tribunal, which is expected to take up to six weeks, will hear from 38 former cabin crew members who claim they were discriminated against by British Airways in early 2020 when the airline ripped up long-standing scheduling agreements that they relied upon for family-caring responsibilities.
British Airways faces claims totaling more than £514 million after thousands of cabin crew were either made redundant or made to feel like they had no other choice but to resign due to the massive changes that the airline was making to its employment practices.
At the time, British Airways had three separate cabin crew workgroups at its Heathrow hub: ‘Worldwide’ crew who only worked long-haul flights, ‘Eurofleet’ crew who only worked short-haul flights, and a newer group of ‘mixed fleet’ crew who were paid substantially less than other colleagues and employed on far less accommodating terms and conditions.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, British Airways told veteran crew members that they either accept massive changes to their terms and conditions or face the possibility of being made redundant.
The former cabin crew accuse the airline of unfair dismissal and discrimination, claiming British Airways plotted to use the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of more expensive ‘legacy’ crew.
Fundamental to the claim against British Airways is the concept of indirect associative discrimination, which was only recently introduced into UK employment law.
According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, indirect associative discrimination is “when a policy which discriminates against a protected group, such as women because they are more likely to be carers, also discriminates against those who aren’t part of that protected group but experience the same disadvantage.”
In the case of British Airways, this might include male cabin crew who may also be carers.
Last year, British Airways mounted a legal bid to dismiss the claims of indirect associative discrimination, but the equality watchdog and government intervened, and BA’s case was dismissed.
That decision paved the way for the start of the tribunal earlier this week.
“This case is about holding BA accountable for what we believe was calculated and opportunistic mistreatment of its most experienced cabin crew,” commented Tara Grossman, a partner at law firm Kepler Wolf, which is representing some of the cabin crew.
Grossman added: “Our claim is that the pandemic was used as cover to unlawfully remove longstanding employees, many of whom were older, parents, carers or had disabilities. Our clients were given impossible ‘choices’ and suffered devastating consequences.”
British Airways faced heavy criticism for the way it handled its pandemic-era restructuring, with the airline labeled a “national disgrace” by an influential parliamentary panel.
In 2023, British Airways promised to restore pandemic-era pay cuts for thousands of cabin crew, although changes to their scheduling agreements were not reversed.
British Airways asked for the following statement to be included: “The Covid-19 pandemic was the single greatest crisis in BA’s history, and it had a devastating impact on the business.
“Like many other airlines, we were forced to make redundancies and changes to avoid collapse and preserve thousands of jobs, with the situation so precarious that we had to take on billions of pounds of debt just to survive.”
“The proposals we had to make with cabin crew were supported by over 95% of crew in a consultative ballot. We therefore reject the allegation that these changes were unlawful and that Covid was used as an excuse to carry out this essential restructure.”
