Lawsuit Filed By Alaska Airlines FAs

Four flight attendants for Alaska airlines have filed a lawsuit in Cook County , IL against Boeing charging that the air handling systems on its airplane can cause toxic fumes to be released in the cabin.

Television station KING reports that the suit cites one particular flight in 2013 in which the flight attendants say they could smell a "foul odor" from the moment they boarded the airplane. One said she became so nauseous that she passed out, causing the flight to make an unscheduled landing in Chicago.

An attorney representing the flight attendants said that Boeing has known about the "bleed air" problem since the 1950s, and it was only just remedied on the 787.

Boeing has not commented on the lawsuit. But it has said that research "consistently" shows that "cabin air meets health and safety standards and that contaminant levels are generally low."

In a statement, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) president at Alaska Airlines, Jeffrey Peterson said the union fully supports the legal action brought by the FAs.

"We support our fellow flight attendants in their efforts to seek justice after breathing in contaminated air on board the aircraft. Their experience is similar to many others throughout the airline industry who have experienced contaminated air events. In fact, AFA has been fighting for cleaner cabin air for decades while the industry has refused to acknowledge the problem.

"More recently AFA has been supporting research at the University of Washington to create a blood test that will be able to determine if crew members were poisoned so that proper treatment could begin as soon as possible. Our efforts will continue as we push for sensors and filters to be installed in all aircraft as well as changes to future aircraft design to avoid engine bleed air that can become contaminated.

"AFA's global efforts to define this problem so it can be fixed will continue until contaminated bleed air has no way into the cabin ever again."

FMI: www.afacwa.org