[ad_1]
CALIFORNIA: United Airlines Holdings Inc packages its charter flights for sports teams with young, blonde crews and bans older flight attendants from working on plum routes, according to a new lawsuit.
In doing so, the airline bases the value of the workers “entirely on their racial and physical attributes, and stereotypical notions of sexual attractiveness,” according to two veteran flight attendants who sued Friday in California.
The attendees, a black woman who has worked for the airline for 28 years and a Jewish woman with 34 years in office, say they both tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to be assigned to work on charter flights.
United Airlines has contracts to provide air travel to about three dozen teams from the National Soccer League, Major League Baseball and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, according to the lawsuit.
Attendees who work on those flights earn more and are provided with premium accommodations. Sometimes they also get game tickets, including playoff and Super Bowl tickets, and “extremely valuable” on-field passes, depending on demand.
Sharon Tesler and Kim Guillory said supervisors told them they couldn’t get charters because they weren’t on “preferred” lists that were based on team preferences, according to the complaint.
They said they later found out that younger white and blonde assistants with less seniority were assigned the tasks.
“United has created a despicable situation,” the women said in the complaint.
It is “as if decades of laws and policies that prevent discrimination based on age, race, ancestry and gender simply don’t exist.”
United Airlines did not respond to a request for comment outside of business hours on Friday.
The women said they filed complaints with the airline, but they were ignored.
United Airlines “has adopted and continues to implement procedures that are designed to ensure that young, white, blonde / blue-eyed employees receive positions in the charter program, while older black and Jewish employees such as plaintiffs , They do not do it. ”They said in the complaint.
The women seek monetary damages, including punitive damages.
The case is Guillory v. United Airlines, Inc, 20-civ-03889, in the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo.
