A sacked Aer Lingus attendant has been accused of refusing to let a passenger on a delayed flight use the bathroom in a stand-off over alleged bad language from the man while boarding.
One of the complainant's colleagues told the Workplace Relations Commission yesterday that the passenger - a man in his 30s - was reduced to tears by the time he got a chance to go.
By then, she confirmed to Aer Lingus's legal team, the flight was already halfway back on its journey from Marseille to Dublin.
The incident was set out in defence evidence presented by the airline in response to a complaint by senior flight attendant Alan O'Neill under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.
Lawyers instructed by Mr O'Neill's trade union, Fórsa, have called into question the recollections of other cabin crew about what happened and when on Flight EI-515 on 9 April 2024.
Mr O'Neill was the ranking member of cabin crew on the jet that day when a problem with its auxiliary power unit (APU) held up its outbound flight from Dublin, and delayed it further on the ground in France, the tribunal heard.
Flight attendant Claire Durkan said passengers had been left to wait for the inbound jet in a part of the terminal with "apparently no bathrooms" available.
Upon boarding, one passenger asked to use the bathroom. Mr O'Neill refused him on safety grounds as the plane was refuelling, she said.
Then she heard the passenger saying "under his breath" the words "oh for f***’s sake". She said he did not say it "directly" to Mr O'Neill.
Ms Durkan said that there would have been an opportunity between the end of refuelling and pushback where the passenger could have been let go to the toilet. Mr O’Neill did not tell the man he could, she said.
Formal warning
After take-off, when the fasten seatbelt sign was still on, the passenger got up again and tried to go to the forward bathroom, near where Mr O'Neill and Ms Durkan were sitting in jump seats, the tribunal heard. He was sent back by Mr O'Neill.
Another member of the cabin crew, Joan O'Gorman, said it was "strange that he [Mr O'Neill] wasn’t letting [the passenger] go".
The light for the forward bathroom on the jet was "definitely green" when he got up, she said.
After that, Ms Durkan said, 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."
Mr O'Neill’s written account of the incident stated that the passenger initially "tried to push past me on boarding to use the toilet during fuelling".
After "two verbal warnings", Mr O'Neill and the captain agreed the passenger should be served a 'Dip 1 form' - a written warning to a disruptive passenger, the statement added.
Ms Durkan said Mr O'Neill wanted her to get the passenger's boarding card to take his name for the Dip 1.
"[The passenger] said he wasn't giving me [his] boarding pass he 'can go to the toilet'," Ms Durkan said.
She returned to Mr O'Neill and told him this. Mr O'Neill told her: "He won't be allowed to go to the toilet unless he gives the boarding pass," she said.
The seatbelt light remained on during this time and the passenger had yet to use the bathroom when they started the trolley service, she said.
Asked how long had elapsed, Ms Durkan said "about 45, 50 minutes", but then said "that might sound a little bit too long".
Jason Murray BL, for the complainant, said it might have been "as short as 10" minutes. "The witness doesn’t know," he said.
Ms O'Gorman’s further evidence was that it was "somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour" when the passenger came to the back of the plane and used the aft right lavatory.
She agreed with counsel for the airline Tom Mallon BL that this was "halfway through the flight".
"I could see him coming down the aisle. He was crying," she said.
Mr Mallon 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.
The case is continuing for two more days this week before adjudication officer Michael MacNamee. Mr O’Neill is not expected to give evidence until later in the year.
Mr Mallon is instructed by Katie Rooney of Arthur Cox in the matter. Mr Murray is instructed by Jennifer McCarthy of Daniel Spring & Co.
'Mr Big Man'
Ms O'Gorman said after landing at Dublin Airport, she and Mr O'Neill 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, the complainant 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.
Mr Mallon asked the witness about texts she had been shown by her colleagues.
"The next morning, they asked how I was, because they heard I'd been attacked. I said: 'Where on earth did you hear that from?'" Ms O'Gorman said.
"You weren't attacked?" Mr Mallon asked.
"I wasn't attacked," Ms O'Gorman said.
Human right to use the toilet
Mr Murray asked Ms Durkan in cross-examination whether she had "authority to overrule the pilot" when the fasten seatbelt light was lit.
"No, but there are times - it's a human right to use the toilet; if someone needs to use the toilet, you're not going to tell them no," she said.
"If I know the situation is safe," she added.
She told Mr Murray that sending the passenger back when he approached while the seatbelt light on was "the correct thing to do".
However, she disagreed with the decision to serve the passenger with a written warning and was of the view that her colleague "overreacted".
