LAS VEGAS — A fired United Airlines flight attendant says the airline's “friendly skies” turned decidedly hostile when she spoke with co-workers about her faith's gender tenets.
The 28-year veteran employee said neither the airline nor the flight attendants association would take his side in the face of an anonymous Twitter complaint containing false accusations.
That's what Ruben D. Sanchez Jr., 52, of Anchorage, Alaska, hopes. Raise $18,000 via GoFundMe Continue the fight to get your job back.
“I'm too young to retire and too old to start fresh,” the former jet-setter told The Post in a phone interview.
He said his work as an active-duty member of the Alaska Air National Guard “reduced the salary I earned with United Airlines.”
Sanchez said his troubles began on May 31, 2023, on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Cleveland.
He said he was trying to stay awake for a last-minute assignment, but ended up talking to another flight attendant about their shared Catholic faith and about Pride Month, which begins the next day.
The annual gay rights act is “important to United,” Sanchez said. The airline is “doing all things Pride, there are Pride flags everywhere,” and a “drag queen DJ” is playing music at United Airlines' Los Angeles terminal.
“It was just innocent. 'Let's talk to stay awake,'” Sanchez said.
However, Mr Sanchez's voice was heard by an unidentified person, who complained to the airline via Twitter.
“I said, 'As Catholics, we shouldn't protect our pride,'” said the now-former flight attendant. “The Church does not accept same-sex marriage because men give birth, or women have penises, or marriage is a sacrament, not for two men, two women, or three, etc. I’ll never believe you should celebrate.’ That’s all I said.”
Sanchez told the Post that his online accuser claims that “I hate all black people” and “I'm proudly anti-transgender,” but that's not true.
Sanchez said he was suspended over unsubstantiated tweet complaints and that his boss told him the airline would look into his Twitter history.
According to that timeline, Sanchez once posted several jokes about Joan Rivers about Elizabeth Taylor's weight, and also posted jokes about plus-size pole athlete Chris Christie. It became clear, but supervisors said this showed disrespect for “larger passengers.”
Sanchez said the airline also took issue with his tweets about removing the “transgender triangle” from the Pride flag and opposing global warming.
He said a humorous photo of him carrying a pilot on his shoulders “went viral” online, creating a “connection” between his personal social media posts and his work.
The newspaper reached out to United Airlines for comment, but the airline twice responded via email saying it had “nothing to share” regarding Sanchez's case.
Officials from the Flight Attendants Association union office, a United Airlines attorney, and the Houston district attorney who initially represented Sanchez during the investigation did not respond to multiple calls and emails from the newspaper seeking comment.
This is not the first time a flight attendant union has been formed. The company was criticized for not supporting religiously observant employees.
First Liberty Institute, a public interest law firm, filed the lawsuit in January on behalf of: 2 Alaska Airlines flight attendants who asked the question Carriers supported the Equality Act of 2021, which adds LGBTQ protections to federal civil rights law.
The Alaska Airlines worker lawsuit alleged that the AFA-CWA Master Executive Council did not support the employees and instead reported the employees' comments to company officials.
First Liberty asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the case after a lower court ruled against the workers.
“Employers are increasingly hostile to people of faith in the workplace, and we're seeing that play out in a number of ways,” said David Hacker, the group's vice president of litigation. he told the Post. “We at First Liberty are seeing these types of situations occurring more and more, and it's an alarming trend. . . . It stipulates that you may not be discriminated against on the basis of
Hacker said corporate shareholders must push back against the woke corporate stance of the federal government, which says companies “must not discriminate against people on the basis of their faith.”
“There's no silver bullet to change that. But there are certainly a lot of different tools in the toolbox and we need to use all of them to ensure people of faith are protected,” he said. Said.
Mr. Sanchez said he tried unsuccessfully to raise about $15,000 to pay for these costs because the union said it would not represent him in arbitration.
He hopes to use the proceeds from the GoFundMe to cover existing legal fees and move the case forward.
