Ex-British Airways cabin crew employment case takes off

A group of ex-legacy cabin crew of British Airways are suing the airline for more than £500,000 over alleged unfair dismissal during the pandemic.

A trial over unfair dismissal kicked off this week at the Employment Tribunal in Reading. Thirty former cabin crew members accused BA of using controversial labour practices.

These allegations include British Airways letting staff go before rehiring them on new and often less favourable terms.

This stemmed from the airline’s decision to merge its long-haul and short-haul fleets into one single ‘mixed fleet,’ which resulted in changes to legacy crew’s pay and contracts.

The law firm of the claimants alleges that the restructuring resulted in 3887 legacy/older crew leaving the airline through either voluntary or compulsory redundancy.

A committee report from the Parliament in June 2020 stated: “[British Airways’] current consultation on staffing changes is a calculated attempt to take advantage of the pandemic to cut 12,000 jobs and to downgrade the terms and conditions of approximately 35,000 employees.”

This case was in court last year over an equality issue.

British Airways was looking to appeal a legal decision on an interpretation of the Equality Act regarding a key section.

The UK government intervened in the British Airways appeal to the Tribunal as the Minister of State for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson asked the judge to dismiss their case.

Last August, the Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the airline’s appeal. At the time, a spokesperson for the airline said: “This appeal was about seeking the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s directions on a narrow and technical area of law.”

The main hearing of this case kicked off this week. The airlines are expected to give evidence and their witnesses next week. The trial is set to conclude on 4 April.

Law firm Kepler Wolf, led by Tara Grossman, represents 29 of the ex-cabin crew, with an expected total of £514.28m.

Commenting on the case, Grossman said: “This case is about holding British Airways accountable for what we believe was calculated and opportunistic mistreatment of its most experienced and loyal cabin crew.”

“Our claim is that the pandemic was used as cover to unlawfully remove longstanding employees who had dedicated their careers to the airline, many of whom were older, parents, carers or had disabilities.”

A spokesperson for British Airways said: “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 per cent 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,” they added.

This story has been updated to include British Airways statement.