"Only White, Young Female Attendants On Flights": Airlines Sued For Discrimination

A recent lawsuit alleges that US-based United Airlines shows a preference for flight attendants with specific features and age groups on charter flights serving professional and college sports teams. According to the Los Angeles Times, two United Airlines flight attendants claim in a lawsuit that they were passed over for the plum assignment of working on charter flights for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team because the players prefer a "certain look" of "white, young, thin women who are predominately blond and blue-eyed."

Dawn Todd, aged 50, and Darby Quezada, aged 44, assert that they were disregarded and later excluded from these flights in favor of female colleagues who were described as "young and thin."

In the lawsuit, which the Los Angeles Times reports was filed on October 25 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, both women alleged harassment and/or discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, and age in regard to the staffing of United's charter flights for the Dodgers and their treatment by coworkers on those flights.

According to the lawsuit, Ms Todd and Ms Quezada have both worked for United for more than 15 years and have spent more than a decade trying to join the airline's program that staffs the Dodgers' flights. Such assignments can bring attendants up to three times the compensation of typical assignments because of longer flight times and other perks.

"Plaintiffs had the necessary experience and qualifications," the lawsuit states, "but their requests were dismissed and rejected because Plaintiffs were not white."

According to The New York Post, United Airlines settled a previous case that accused the airline of staffing flights with "young, white, female, and predominately blonde or blue-eyed" attendants. The new lawsuit uses that 2020 settlement as the basis for the new case, saying "things changed again in 2022 when several white United flight attendants were added to the 'dedicated crew.'