The Biden administration has given its backing to a bunch of California-based flight attendants who received a decrease court docket ruling that discovered Virgin America didn’t abide by the state’s meal and relaxation break law.
The Justice Department’s solicitor common advised the U.S. Supreme Court it mustn’t take up an enchantment after the ninth Circuit sided with flight attendants in a 2021 choice.
The decrease court docket mentioned airways might adjust to each Federal Aviation Administration security guidelines and California’s meal and break requirement by “staff[ing] longer flights with additional flight attendants in order to allow for duty-free breaks.”
Virgin America, which was acquired by Alaska Air Group in 2016, advised the Supreme Court the choice might wreak “nationwide havoc in the airline industry” and require airways so as to add a number of flight attendants per flights, and inevitably pilots, and “will displace paying passengers.”
Alaska Airlines mentioned Wednesday it plans to file a response to the Justice Department, including “uniform national standards are critical to ensuring the safety of the U.S. air transportation system. The application of individual state laws would introduce unacceptable levels of risk and complexity to air travel.”
Lawyers for the flight attendants mentioned the impression could be restricted to flights utterly inside California, including “it is undisputed that Virgin can comply with those requirements by simply staffing any wholly-intrastate flights with an additional flight attendant — at the marginal cost of $100 per flight.
Airlines for America, a group representing American Airlines, United Airlines and others, said the California rules should be preempted by federal law and urged the Supreme Court to reverse the decision.
The group said “the only way airlines can comply with these laws is to add more flight attendants on ‘longer’ flights and to schedule longer ground times between ‘shorter’ flights.”
The Justice Department mentioned the Transportation Department and FAA “are prepared to facilitate discussions outside of this litigation with the airlines, unions, and states to address and minimize any other potential disruption to the traveling public that could arise.”
