In December, two separate suits were filed against Frontier Airlines by female flight attendants and pilots who allege the company has routinely discriminated against pregnant and nursing employees at the company. Specifically, the suits allege Frontier required pregnant employees to suspend work duties months before they were scheduled to give birth, forcing employees to use their vacation days in lieu of paid time off and take unpaid maternity leave without Frontier providing alternatives for work. In addition to this, the pilots claim that Frontier discriminated against breastfeeding mothers at work, preventing them from pumping while they were in the air. If that sounds like it's a safety concern, the plaintiffs note that it is common practice for a pilot to take bathroom breaks, leaving the copilot in the cockpit, and that a break for pumping would be no different.
The plaintiffs are joined by the ACLU, the ACLU of Colorado, and Towards Justice, who are arguing that Frontier is violating EEOC regulations as well as Colorado state laws designed to protect pregnant and nursing mothers.
This is not the first time in recent years that such discrimination cases have hit Frontier, with similar complaints being filed in 2016 and 2017. Other airlines have been confronted with similar accusations of discrimination. airlines, with Delta settling one such case in 2017.
Despite some headway, gender discrimination at work remains a significant issue for women working in the airline industry, as it is in many industries, and one of the most obvious points of contentions is the rights of pregnant or nursing employees, whose only recourse may be to utilize long-term disability rules to find any relief and job security, which is often seen as demeaning and typically comes with lower pay.
