United Airlines is being sued for allegedly filling their NFL charter flights with young, blond flight attendants while barring older employees from working the sports team flights.
A new lawsuit by two veteran flight attendants accuses the airline of basing the value of workers “entirely on their racial and physical attributes, and stereotypical notions of sexual allure.”
The suit was launched Friday in California by Sharon Tesler and Kim Guillory, two attendants — a Black woman who has worked for the airline for 28 years and a Jewish woman with 34 years of tenure. The two women say they both tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get assigned to work the charter flights to no avail.
United has various contracts to provide air travel for over 30 different teams in the NFL, MLB, and NCAA, according to the lawsuit. The attendants assigned to work those flights reportedly earn more and receive premium accommodations. They also are often gifted with tickets to playoff and Super Bowl games, and “extremely valuable” infield passes, the lawsuit states.
Tesler and Guillory claim supervisors said they were unable to work on the charters because they weren’t on the team’s “preferred” lists. It was only later that they discovered young, white blond attendants — with less seniority — were given the ones getting assigned.
United released a statement on Saturday shutting down the claims.
“While we cannot comment on this ongoing litigation, the flight attendants included in our sports team charter program are largely representative of our overall flight attendant population in regards to age and race,” the company said. “Importantly, flight attendant eligibility to work a charter flight is based solely on performance and attendance and has nothing to do with age, race or gender.”