British Airways is defending accusations from 33 cabin crew that it used the pandemic as an excuse to dismiss them.
The airline insists that the redundancies were necessary due to the financial impact of COVID.
An employment tribunal in Reading will be hearing the claims of alleged unfair dismissal, age, sex, disability and race discrimination over the next six weeks.
Tara Grossman, a partner at law firm Kepler Wolf, which is representing 29 of the former cabin crew, told Law.com: “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.
“Included in the claim is that our clients were given impossible ‘choices’ and suffered devastating consequences.”
In total, the claims brought by Kepler Wolf’s clients are worth approximately £514.3 million, a spokesperson for the legal action said.
Some of the crew who were dismissed were looking after elderly parents and young children, while some were cancer suffers, it said.
BA denies their claims of unfair dismissal, insisting that it was forced to make redundancies and changes to avoid collapse.
In a statement, the airline said: “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.”
The tribunal began on 24 February and will continue until 4 April.
Meanwhile, BA’s parent IAG has announced a 27% leap in annual operating profit to €4.4 billion after seeing ‘strong leisure demand’ in 2024 and inflation-driven fare increases.
However, the airline group, which also owns Iberia and Vueling, warned it might have to adjust its capacity this year due to possible delays in new aircraft deliveries from both Boeing and Airbus.
