BA's rushed investigation cost it £29,195 despite tribunal finding steward's conduct blameworthy

A British Airways steward approached a colleague while she was on a rest break behind a privacy curtain and, according to the allegations the airline came to believe, asked whether she wanted to join the so-called mile high club, touched her leg and told stories of a sexual nature. The tribunal did not accept that the dismissal was fair, but it was clear about one thing: disturbing a colleague during her break for a non-work conversation was blameworthy conduct and an invasion of her privacy.

The complainant told the airline's investigation that she had been made to feel extremely uncomfortable and that her privacy had been totally invaded. Colleagues reported she looked tired after the break, said she had only been trying to be nice, and later described the encounter as uncomfortable. She also said she did not want to be rostered on a flight with him again.

Employment Judge Macey found BA genuinely believed the allegations and had reasonable grounds for that belief. The dismissal still failed because of how the airline reached it. Investigators interviewed the steward before they had taken a full account of events from the complainant, and there were differences between her initial statement and what she later said in her investigation interview.

The airline also failed to question the complainant in sufficient depth about her allegation that her knee had been touched. When the matter reached the disciplinary stage, the manager who interviewed the steward asked about the fuller version of the allegations, but her questioning was not as thorough as the original investigator's had been. Together, those flaws made the dismissal substantively unfair.

The steward wanted his old job back, despite saying he no longer trusted the airline's management. The tribunal refused reinstatement. BA's genuine and rational belief that the misconduct happened meant its loss of trust and confidence was enough on its own to make re-employment impracticable. A flawed investigation, the tribunal noted, does not stop an employer relying on its genuine belief.

Practicality also mattered. BA can place a no-fly restriction so two crew members are not rostered on the same flight, but its own witness accepted that process exists for personality clashes, not to prevent sexual harassment. With around 5,280 cabin crew passing through Heathrow daily, the chance of meeting in the crew report centre was low, but nothing stopped two crew on different flights to the same destination staying in the same hotel. That real risk of the pair crossing paths was a secondary reason reinstatement was impracticable.

The tribunal awarded £29,195.69 in total: a basic award of £1,924.96, a compensatory award of £25,024.48 and £2,246.25 for wrongful dismissal, the last being notice pay the airline should have paid under his contract. The compensatory award was shaped by several adjustments: a 30 per cent Polkey reduction because some loss might have occurred even after a fair process, a 20 per cent reduction for his contributory conduct, a 15 per cent reduction for not widening his job search to the UK from May 2025, and a 10 per cent uplift because the flawed investigation breached the ACAS Code. The statutory cap of 52 weeks' pay then limited the compensatory award to £25,024.48.

The judge also found the steward should have checked whether BA would give him a reference rather than assuming it would refuse or disclose the dismissal reason, and that waiting for the hearing outcome before applying for UK jobs was not reasonable.

First, sequence matters. The single flaw that sank BA's case was interviewing the accused before securing a full account from the complainant. If you are ever involved in a workplace investigation, whether as complainant or respondent, it is worth noting when you gave your account relative to other interviews, and whether the version put to the other party matched what you actually said.

Second, the depth of questioning on each specific allegation counted. The knee-touching claim was never probed properly, and that gap fed directly into the unfairness finding. Keeping your own dated record of what you reported, to whom, and what questions you were asked can help show later whether an investigation covered each allegation. Finally, the ACAS Code uplift of 10 per cent shows that procedural failures carry a direct financial cost for employers, even when they genuinely believe the misconduct occurred.