United Airlines Faces Lawsuit Alleging Discrimination in Flight Attendant Assignments
A recent lawsuit has been filed against United Airlines, accusing the company of displaying a preference for flight attendants with specific physical attributes and age groups on charter flights serving professional and college sports teams. The lawsuit, reported by the Los Angeles Times, was filed by two United Airlines flight attendants who claim they were overlooked for the coveted opportunity to work on charter flights for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team due to their appearance not meeting the players’ desired “look” of “white, young, thin women who are predominately blond and blue-eyed.”
The plaintiffs, Dawn Todd, 50, and Darby Quezada, 44, allege that they were dismissed and eventually excluded from these flights in favor of their female colleagues who were described as “young and thin.” The lawsuit, filed on October 25 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses United Airlines of subjecting Todd and Quezada to harassment and discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, and age in relation to the staffing of United’s charter flights for the Dodgers, as well as mistreatment by coworkers during those flights.
According to the lawsuit, both Todd and Quezada have been employed by United for over 15 years and have spent more than a decade attempting to join the airline’s program that staffs the Dodgers’ flights. These assignments often offer attendants up to three times the compensation of regular assignments due to longer flight durations and additional perks.
“The plaintiffs possessed the necessary experience and qualifications,” the lawsuit states, “but their requests were dismissed and rejected because they were not white.”
The New York Post reports that United Airlines previously settled a similar case in 2020, which accused the company of staffing flights with “young, white, female, and predominantly blonde or blue-eyed” attendants. The new lawsuit references this settlement as the foundation for the current case, arguing that “things changed again in 2022 when several white United flight attendants were added to the ‘dedicated crew.'”
United Airlines has yet to respond to the allegations made in the lawsuit.
