NZ pilot sacked for sex gets job back

[flyhardmo]

Sorry if it was posted before but there is a lesson here. From personal experience and lots of buddies who have been involved with FA's my advice is don't do. The only true advice you'll get in aviation.

[URL="http://news.ninemsn.com.au/mobile/article.aspx?id=8231625&_sp=2045&noid=6304&_s=4cfd9114-4fa5-4cfb-910c-36e1c4ec2e39"]

A New Zealand pilot has won his job back after being sacked for a late-night drinking spree during which he had sex with a 19-year-old flight attendant.

The Employment Court found the grounds for his dismissal were unjustified and ordered he be reinstated and paid $NZ10,000 ($A7,400) compensation and $NZ51,000 ($A37,740) for lost wages.

The pilot had earlier unsuccessfully sought a personal grievance case with the Employment Relations Authority.

He, the flight attendant and a male first officer, whose names are suppressed, were forced to abandon a flight out of Napier in May 2008 due to heavy fog.

They booked a hotel, picked up alcohol and engaged in smutty, sexual banter on the way there, according to evidence given to an Air Nelson probe into the incident.

Because they had no overnight clothes, the pilot arranged for three bathrobes to be sent and the three met in his room for drinks and nibbles, wearing the robes and their underwear.

The first officer said at some point the woman went to the pilot's bed uninvited and lay next to him.

According to the pilot, who was married, the woman told the men she had had sex with at least one flight attendant previously and led them to believe she may do so again.

"She talked about having sex with no strings attached and said that that was the same for married men when we asked more.

"There was a tattooed man on the TV and we asked if anybody had tattoos. She showed her pierced belly button. We asked if she had any more piercing... (She) said that she used to have a pierced nipple and showed us her breasts."

They then moved on to the topic of waxing.

The first officer said when he left the woman was fully conscious and smiling suggestively.

She and the pilot had sex, which the pilot claimed was consensual, but which she said was something she would never have consented to, although she said she had no memory of events after midnight due to the amount of alcohol she had consumed.

"My next memory was standing inside (the pilot's) room with my bathrobe on but nothing else. My bra and underwear were gone.

"I went back to my room. As soon as I got there I started crying. I felt really dirty and disgusted. It felt like I had had sex but I could not remember it. I had my period at the time and I remember thinking that (the pilot) was a married man and there was no way I would have willingly had sex with him."

She laid a complaint and the pilot was sacked for serious misconduct, with Air Nelson general manager John Hambleton finding he had breached the trust the company had placed in him as a captain and that his actions amounted to sexual harassment.

A police investigation did not find any foundation to the allegations.

In his decision, Judge Mark Perkins said Hambleton had come to his conclusion based on the woman's state of hysteria and anxiety, but had failed to consider other possibilities.

"He should have considered whether (the woman's) memory loss was simply a convenient way to avoid confronting her own behaviour that night."

Hambleton had also not taken into account scientific evidence that suggested they had drunk less alcohol than was alleged.

The man is due to be reinstated later this month.

© NZPA 2011

[buggaluggs]

Hmmmm, got his job back ok, I wonder how his marriage is doing.... :ouch:

[Yousef Breckenheimer]

This bit really f:mad:s me off,

A brief statement last evening said Air New Zealand and Air Nelson were "disappointed that the Employment Court in its judgment sets a far lower standard of expectation on the behaviour and professional standards of pilots than the airline".

This from an airline that paraded a pilot to the nation who had been getting seriously on the piss on tours abroad. Which is more serious, a hungover boozy pilot or someone who rooted a hosty?

F:mad:wits

[Worrals in the wilds]

A police investigation did not find any foundation to the allegations.


Then surely the matter should have been closed then and there.

If you run a business that employs adults and sends them away for work you have to expect a certain amount of human behaviour. Demanding that everyone be holier than thou is hypocritical, unfair and impossible to enforce. Providing effects of alcohol training for crews (if they don't already) would have been more useful than grandstanding after the event.

I'm also getting sick of reading about people (of both genders) getting totally blotto and then dodging responsibility for their actions. There's far too much of it around at the moment.

Couldn't the whole incident have been buried in the 'embarassing and regrettable crap I did while travelling for work and laying into the martinis' file? Most of us have one of those files with a few OMG WTFs in it.

[blow.n.gasket]

What a pedestrian slip.
No sheep or even a dwarf mentioned anywhere!
What's the world coming to?:uhoh:

[Cactusjack]

What a pedestrian slip.
No sheep or even a dwarf mentioned anywhere!
What's the world coming to?:uhoh:
Due to New Zulands strict censorship laws bro they didnt print the following details bro in the media - 'The pilot has been ordered to pay compensation of $135.00 for the 20 litre bottle of baby oil he used, ordered to replace 8 sq/m of solied carpet, pay for the dry cleaning of 2 leather gymp suits and a leather mask as well as replace 2 missing sets of nipple clamps..Meanwhile 4 gerbils and a carpet snake remain missing in the hotel'.

[deadhead]

Perhaps this is how the headline should have read.

FORMER AIR NELSON GENERAL MANAGER SLAMMED IN EMPLOYMENT COURT

A married Air Nelson pilot fired for having sex with a young female flight attendant during a booze-fuelled stopover has won his job back – and the right to stop his name being published.
The pilot's lawyer, John Haigh QC, said yesterday his client had been vindicated.
"It's now a question of regaining his outstanding reputation within the aviation industry which has been smeared so badly," Mr Haigh said.
An Employment Court decision extremely critical of Air Nelson's handling of the pilot's dismissal found the pilot's sacking was unjustified and he had the right to be reinstated as a pilot, overturning an Employment Relations Authority decision.
Judge Mark Perkins also awarded the pilot the right to seek costs from Air New Zealand for lost wages to the date of his re-employment and for his superannuation to be reinstated to the same position he would have been in if he wasn't dismissed.
Judge Perkins also awarded the pilot $10,000 compensation and reserved costs.
Air New Zealand now has 21 days in which to file an appeal.
The pilot was sacked in June 2009 for serious misconduct including sexual harassment and failing to act responsibly, following an investigation after a 19-year-old flight attendant said she was raped after a night drinking with the pilot and his officer.
The complaint arose when the pilot, his officer and the attendant were forced to stay in Napier in May 2008 when their flight was grounded due to fog.
On the way to the hotel, the trio bought four bottles of wine and a six-pack of beer.
The three admitted there was smutty, sexual banter on the way to the hotel, which continued as they were at the hotel and started drinking in the pilot's room.
The trio drank the beer and two bottles of wine and watched television; and along with the smutty talk there was some "consensual slapping" of the flight attendant by the other pilot when she exposed her breasts and belly to show her body piercing they had talked about.
The attendant woke up at 4am distressed, saying she had no memory of the night from 12am and that she had been raped.
The pilot always maintained the sex was consensual, and the attendant had come on to him.
The attendant claimed she had her period at the time and wouldn't sleep with a married man.
Police investigated the rape complaint but did not lay charges.
The Employment Court's decision, released yesterday, marks the end of a long battle by the pilot to get his job back, and prevent his name being published.
Judge Perkins was particularly critical of the way that former Air Nelson general manager John Hambleton had handled the investigation into the incident and the pilot's dismissal.

He said Mr Hambleton had not approached the inquiry with an open mind and this had influenced his decision to sack the pilot.
Judge Perkins said Mr Hambleton was "overly zealous" of the steps he took in trying to determine the amount of alcohol the pilots drank, and that he shouldn't have dismissed the findings of the scientist who determined that while there was evidence the attendant had drunk a lot, the same could not be conclusively said of the pilots.
The judge said Mr Hambleton appeared to want to believe that no matter what the pilots said, they had intended to drink all four bottles of wine, and he went to lengths to attack their credibility.
Judge Perkins said Mr Hambleton also did not have clear evidence that the flight attendant had been sexually harassed by the pilot and should have considered whether the attendant's alleged memory loss was a convenient way of her not confronting her behaviour that night.
He said evidence existed that should have undermined the flight attendant's claim the sex was non-consensual because she wouldn't do that with a married man, including the fact she had talked about her willingness to do that in previous conversations that night.
Many of Mr Hambleton's decisions were made against the "weight of evidence clearly confronting him".
Judge Perkins also criticised Air Nelson after another pilot gave evidence that Air Nelson may not have dismissed the pilot if he had expressed insight and regret earlier.
"It seems to me that Air Nelson cannot have been confident as to the grounds for its decision to terminate the pilot's employment if that decision would have been different had he made a fulsome expression of acceptance and insight into his wrongdoing."
A brief statement last evening said Air New Zealand and Air Nelson were "disappointed that the Employment Court in its judgment sets a far lower standard of expectation on the behaviour and professional standards of pilots than the airline".

Nice spin. Now let's see if they really believe that with an appeal.

[distracted cockroach]

Was this pilot represented by NZALPA?
If so, this is a pretty good example of what your annual fees get you.
If not, well forget I said anything:ugh:

[deadhead]

The pilot continues to be represented by NZALPA. The union hired John Haigh QC to fight the case. In fact the judgment mentions that the pilot was, at the time of his dismissal, one of their EBA negotiators. The judge refused to be drawn on whether that was significant in the decision of the General Manager to sack him, citing insufficient evidence, but the fact that it was never raised in the original defence case but raised by the Judge, is interesting.

This GM should swap notes with my mother in law. In fact they'd make a great pair.

[distracted cockroach]

Well good for him, and jolly good for the rest of us ALPA members!:ok: