A tribunal has upheld the sacking of a senior Aer Lingus flight attendant said by his colleagues to have refused to let a passenger use the onboard bathroom until he was reduced to tears.
The airline decided the actions of Alan O’Neill, a senior cabin crew member, amounted to gross misconduct and terminated him with notice after 12 years’ service with an otherwise clean disciplinary record, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has been told.
It rejected Mr O’Neill’s complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the airline in a decision just published.
A stand-off developed between Mr O’Neill and a passenger after the senior flight attendant told him he could not use the bathroom while the plane was being refuelled on the tarmac in Marseilles on 9 April, 2024 for a flight to Dublin, the tribunal heard earlier this year.
Another flight attendant said passengers had been left to wait for the inbound jet in a part of the terminal with “apparently no bathrooms” available.
When Mr O’Neill refused the passenger use of the toilet on safety grounds, flight attendant Clair Durkan said she heard the passenger saying “under his breath” the words “oh for f**k’s sake”. She said he did not say it “directly” to Mr O’Neill.
After takeoff, when the “fasten seatbelt” sign was still on, Mr O’Neill had another interaction with the passenger when he got up and tried to go to the forward bathroom, the tribunal heard.
Mr O’Neill was accused of refusing to let the passenger, a man in his 30s, to use the bathroom on the delayed flight for up to 45 minutes after take-off.
The length of time the customer had to wait is strongly disputed by Mr O’Neill’s legal team, who say he was following standard operating procedures while the pilots had the “fasten seatbelt” lit.
He told his bosses he was under strain in his personal life and that the man “triggered” him by swearing when he was first refused, the WRC was told earlier this year.
The passenger was also subject to a temporary flight ban after Mr O’Neill wrote him up under the airline’s “disruptive passenger” procedure and read him a formal warning – a ban which was later “rescinded”, the airline’s legal team said.
That was after a different passenger wrote a complaint to the airline on 29 April 2024 about what happened during the flight and an investigation began, the tribunal heard.
‘For feck’s sake’
The complaint writer reported that they boarded directly after the passenger and heard him ask Mr O’Neill: “Any chance of using the toilet?”
The senior flight attendant’s reply, telling the customer no on safety grounds, was in an “angry, extremely unprofessional, hostile and snarly tone”, the complaint writer added.
The customer replied: “Oh for feck’s sake, we have been held here for an hour delay on the ground and badly need to use the toilet,” the complaint added.
Mr O’Neill then “literally seemed to snap, and devoured the passenger in front of all passengers”, the complaint continued.
“Don’t you swear at me; do not swear at me, or I will have you removed from this aircraft,” Mr O’Neill was quoted as saying.
The passenger “tried to respond politely”, but Mr O’Neill “seemed to view the passenger as dirt and treated him that way”, the writer added.
“It was a clear case of someone abusing their power,” the customer added. “He used threatening body language and words against the passenger, he escalated the situation at every moment, and fellow passengers were shocked,” the complaining passenger wrote.
It was put to company witnesses by counsel for the complainant, Jason Murray BL, that Mr O’Neill’s position was that the passenger told him: “F**k you, I need to use the toilet.”
A statement later taken from Mr O’Neill in a company probe stated that the passenger “tried to push past me on boarding to use the toilet during fuelling” and that he told the man he could use the bathroom when fuelling was finished.
“He started swearing. I informed him the bathroom was not available while fuelling. He continued swearing. I informed him if he continued we would offload him,” the statement said.
He told his bosses he was “fearful” and felt “triggered” by the customer, the manager assigned to conduct a disciplinary process, Mary McHugh, told the tribunal.
Another flight attendant, Ms Durkan, said in evidence that when the passenger later refused to hand over his boarding pass when Mr O’Neill was preparing to issue the formal warning, her senior colleague said: “He won’t be allowed to go to the toilet unless he gives the boarding pass,” she said.
Ms Durkan added that Mr O’Neill went to the passenger and told him: “You can’t go to the toilet. I’ll tell you whenever you can go to the toilet.”
Ms McHugh said: “Okay, [the passenger] didn’t provide his boarding pass; but apart from that, he became upset, and was just complying and embarrassed.”
The second most senior flight attendant aboard, Joan O’Gorman, told the tribunal she saw the passenger “crying” coming down the aisle toward the aft lavatories.
She said she told the man: “Oh my god, you’re crying. I’m so sorry.” The passenger was unable to answer, she added.
Counsel for the respondent, Tom Mallon BL, appearing instructed by Arthur Cox, asked: “In your ten years of flying have you ever observed – [this was] a man in his 30s, a youngish man, but a mature male… have you observed men of that age crying because of an interaction with cabin crew?”
“No. No,” Ms O’Gorman said.
Mr Murray, appearing instructed by Daniel Spring & Co on behalf of Fórsa, argued that the evidence of company witnesses was enough to conclude the disciplinary process was procedurally defective to the extent it made the dismissal unfair.
He confirmed at a hearing last month that his side would call no witnesses at all.
In a decision just published, adjudication officer Michael MacNamee concluded that the process was “fair and reasonable” and that “any inperfections or flaws” Mr Murray had been able to point to were “not sufficiently serious as to undermine the overall fairness of the outcome”.
“Dismissal was warranted and was a reasonable and proportionate response,” Mr MacNamee wrote, rejecting the complaint.
Mister big man
Ms O’Gorman also told the tribunal that, after landing at Dublin Airport, she and Mr O’Neill again encountered the passenger on their way to the car park. The passenger was on a video call speaking in Portuguese or Spanish, she said.
Shortly after, from across the Terminal 2 Road, Mr O’Neill shouted at the passenger: “You think you’re mister big man now, do you big fella?” Ms O’Gorman said.
The passenger “shouted over something back,” which she could not make out, the witness said.
Mr O’Neill “got his bag, threw it on the ground” and then “marched off” toward the passenger.
“I said ‘Alan, what are you doing, you’re in uniform, you’re going to get in big trouble,” she said.
She decided to leave the area after that, she added.
