Group of Female Pilots, Flight Attendants File Discrimination Lawsuits Against Frontier Airlines

Brandy Beck always knew she wanted to be a pilot.

So when she got her first flying job at Frontier Airlines, she was ecstatic. Until she had child.

Nobody at the airline could tell her the protocol for a mother in the cockpit. Could she breastfeed? Would she lose her job? Nobody had an answer.

“Frontier felt like a family,” Beck told The Denver Post. “So to feel let down once I had my own family was devastating.”

Beck is part of a group of eight female Frontier Airlines pilots and flight attendants who filed federal lawsuits Tuesday in Denver alleging the company discriminated against them during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. All of the women were based in Colorado and flew out of Denver International Airport.

“Frontier’s failure to account for Plaintiff’s needs related to pregnancy and breastfeeding caused them to suffer serious penalties, both at and outside of work, simply because they had children,” the lawsuits said.

In a statement, Frontier, whose headquarters are in Denver, denied the allegations.

The plaintiffs are pilots and flight attendants “with several decades of flying experience between them, who had children and breastfed their babies during their employment with Frontier,” the suit said. Yet they “found themselves faced with mounting obstacles once they became pregnant that forced them to make impossible choices between their families and their livelihood.”

Frontier’s actions are contrary to protections of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), according to the lawsuits.

Two lawsuits were filed because Frontier policies for flight attendants and pilots are different and therefore need to be addressed separately, Sara Neel, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Colorado, said.

The ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project for years has received complaints about the airline industry, Neel said. After a few years, there were enough complaints specific to Frontier to start an investigation into the company.

“It’s not as if the airline industry is fantastic overall for women, but we have learned that other airlines are doing better,” Neel said. “Therefore, it’s possible. So Frontier’s defense that everything is related to safety doesn’t make sense.”

The ACLU doesn’t have lawsuits against other airlines, though other companies have similar problems, Neel said. The civil rights organization hopes other airlines comply with the law.

Frontier forced its employees “onto unpaid leave at a certain point during their pregnancies, with no possibility of receiving any accommodations that would have enabled them to continue working, depriving them of critical income when they needed it the most,” the complaints said.

Frontier offered “no paid parental leave and only a short unpaid leave following childbirth,” according to the lawsuits. All plaintiffs were breastfeeding when they returned to work.

“Yet Frontier refused to make it possible for them to pump breast milk on the job, which they needed to do to be able to continue nursing,” the lawsuits said. The situation and Frontier’s policies and practices forced the employees onto unpaid leave and forced them to give up breastfeeding “and the many associated benefits for their own and their babies health.”

Frontier denied the allegations in a statement, promising to “defend vigorously against these lawsuits.”

“Frontier Airlines has strong policies in place in support of pregnant and lactating mothers and remains committed to treating all of its team members equally and fairly,” the statement read. “Frontier offers a number of accommodations for pregnant and lactating pilots and flight attendants within the bounds of protecting public safety, which is always our top priority.”

Kiedrowski was “subjected to disciplinary action for seeking accommodations related to pumping and was prohibited to pumping while in uniform,” according to the pilots’ lawsuit. Beck and Freyer had accommodation requests unanswered and were “ultimately forced to pump in an unsanitary airplane lavatory between flights.”

Pilot Randi Freyer said in an interview that she ultimately developed an infection.

“It becomes so uncomfortable,” she said. “And it can be really embarrassing.”

Flight attendant Melissa Hodgkins gave up breastfeeding earlier than she wanted to because she felt like she had no choice.

“Ultimately I suffered with that decision, and I still suffered with that decision,” she said in an interview. “I was forced to choose between my career and my family. It’s time I’ll never get back.”

The lawsuit said “Frontier’s policies and practices have … systematically discriminated against pregnant and breastfeeding pilots by signaling out pregnancy and breastfeeding for disadvantaged treatment and by failing to comply with Colorado laws that require employers to accommodate pregnancy and related medical conditions and specifically mandate the provision of break time and a private, sanitary location to pump.”

The plaintiffs are seeking commonsense policy changes by Frontier, while declaring that the airline’s current policies and practices are unlawful.

“Pilots, we’re determined people,” Freyer said. “But you get a woman pilot and we’re really determined. You got some serious, serious hurdles to jump over and it doesn’t matter — nothing stops you once you get there.”

At least one pilot suffered blocked ducts and mastitis because of the situation, according to the lawsuit. At least one woman was made to “feel anxious and ashamed” by company representatives who questioned why she was breastfeeding and how long she planned on continuing.

“I think that this is a really important case for an industry that thus far have gotten away with not complying with laws for decades,” Neel said.

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