Air NZ accused of rehab bias to pilots

Photo / NZ Herald

A former Air New Zealand flight attendant claim the airline does more to help pilots battling alcohol or drug addictions than it does for "expendable" cabin crew.

Anna MacArthur is upset that the airline dismissed her from her job after she admitted she was battling an addiction to party pills.

Ms MacArthur claims the airline discriminated against her after it came out in support of pilot Warwick West, who had concealed three drink-driving convictions from his employer for almost 20 years.

"The pilots are obviously a lot more valuable to the airline and the cabin crew are expendable," she told 3News last night.

"So I would imagine my recovery would have been more successful had I been a pilot."

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Air New Zealand said last night that Ms MacArthur's claims that she was dismissed unjustly had been rejected by the Employment Relations Authority last year.

Ms MacArthur said she had decided to come out with her story in support of the Flight Attendants' union.

Ms MacArthur had been a flight attendant for Air NZ since 1983 when, in 2007, she revealed that she was battling an addiction to party pills.

She entered a recovery agreement with the airline, which had initially been supportive towards her, and spent more than a year working to overcome the addiction.

This included paying about $13,000 herself to enter a rehab programme in the United States, before completing another programme with the airline a year after that.

But weeks before she was due to be cleared to return to work, she was sacked.

Ms MacArthur said the contrast between the airline's treatment of her and Mr West would be detrimental for it.

"I would suspect that cabin crew would go deep underground and it wouldn't be until they were caught with random drug or alcohol testing, before they were discovered," she said.

Air New Zealand told the

Herald

that Ms MacArthur received "extensive rehabilitation assistance" when she asked for it, but afterwards was still unfit to carry out her work.

"Safety of our customers is paramount in the airline's assessment of whether someone is able to return to their normal duties and in Anna's case, after almost two years, she was still unfit to fly and was dismissed on the grounds that it was unclear if, or when, she would ever be fit to return to work as a flight attendant."

Ms MacArthur is now studying law.