Breastfeeding Mothers May Sue Frontier Airlines for Discrimination

Frontier Airlines might soon be sued for discrimination by breastfeeding mothers who don’t have a place to pump.

If you’re a breastfeeding mother, you may want to rethink working for Frontier Airlines. The company may soon be sued by four pilots and two flight attendants who claim airline officials will not allow them to pump breastmilk while on the job.

The group filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying that by not making allowances for pregnant and nursing mothers, the airline is discriminating against them. There are currently no facilities on the planes for employees to pump – in fact, Frontier bans pumping on the plane altogether.

“It’s not like we’re asking for money,” pilot Randi Freyer told Colorado Public Radio. “It’s not like we’re asking for all of these extravagant things. We’re just asking to be able to feed our kids and for clean places to pump.”

A ruling that would allow the group to sue the airline could happen at anytime, lawyers said. And the women may have a leg up already; recently, a federal court judge decided that a police officer from Alabama was fully within her rights to quit when her employer wouldn’t give her a job at a desk while she was breastfeeding. Instead, she was forced to continue her standard position, and she said the bulletproof vest didn’t allow her to pump while working.

Frontier claims to have a flexible scheduling policy that would allow pregnant or nursing women to figure out with their colleagues a helpful schedule. But that ability is based on seniority, and flight attendant Stacy Rewitzer pointed out to CPR that shifts are often 10 to 15 hours and there isn’t adequate time between flights to be able to pump.

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