The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has handed down its decision in the case of British Airways v Mak.
The case concerned cabin crew of Chinese nationality who lived and were based in Hong Kong. However, as part of their duties they worked on flights between Hong Kong and Gatwick or Heathrow. Whilst stopping over in England they attended short briefings and were sometimes on call during their hotel stays between flights. They also had to attend occasional training in London.
The race and age discrimination legislation in Great Britain states that its territorial jurisdiction covers people who work "wholly or partly" in Great Britain. The EAT held that the cabin crew's connection with Great Britain was sufficient to mean that they could bring race and age claims in the British employment tribunals.
The case shows that such a small connection can still bring someone under the jurisdiction of our discrimination laws (and not just race and age discrimination). Even if a claim is without merit it still leads to a loss of management time and legal expenses that are rarely recoverable from the claimant in tribunal cases.
This is not the first time that pilots and cabin crew have been the subject of a case on the scope of our employment rights. In particular, the Crofts v Veta case, in which one of our employment partners Adam Lambert was involved, went to the House of Lords and is now one of the leading authorities on the scope of our unfair dismissal laws.
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