By Rebecca Wright
A former flight attendant is accusing Air New Zealand of discrimination in its approach to dealing with drug and alcohol issues among staff.
Anna MacArthur says the airline's careful handling of a drink driving pilot this week is in stark contrast to her own treatment by the airline.
Her job as a flight attendant took her all around the world, and then it was taken away.
"I'd been flying for Air New Zealand for 25 years, and I was absolutely devastated to be dismissed after going down such a long hard road of recovery," says Ms MacArthur.
In 2007 she told Air New Zealand she had a problem with drugs, and asked for help. She also paid $13,000 to enter an American rehab centre, and upon her return went through Air New Zealand's programme for a year.
Initially the airline was supportive, but then, six weeks before her final assessment to get back in the air, she was dismissed.
"I don't really think they want people to come back to work on an aircraft because they're high risk, which I can understand, but it's discrimination."
Discrimination, she says, because this week Air New Zealand backed pilot Warwick West, who hid three drink driving convictions from the airline for nearly 20 years.
"The pilots are obviously a lot more valuable to the airline and the cabin crew are expendable, so I would imagine that my recovery would have been more successful had I been a pilot," says Ms MacArthur.
Air New Zealand rejected this, saying: "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's claim of unjustified dismissal was rejected by the Employment Relations Authority, and she has since moved on to studying law. But she is concerned her treatment by the airline will discourage others with problems from coming forward.
"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, which is a real problem for the airline."
Industry sources are also citing another problem today - this time with the airline's random alcohol and drug testing regime. It is thought pilots and cabin crew are only tested on return flights because testing crew during departure disrupts the schedules. Those sources say this means it isn't a random testing regime at all.
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