Formerpilotasks tobereinstated

A former pilot is asking the Canadian Human Rights Commission to resurrect her “lifelong dream” to fly for a major airline — an ambition she abandoned five years ago after she was allegedly discriminated against by an Air Canada colleague because she’s a woman.

Jane Clegg fought back tears and paused several times Monday during her testimony at a human rights tribunal in Ottawa as she described the 2009 incident that eventually led her to quit the airline in April 2013.

Clegg, who wants the commission to order her reinstatement, was working as a second officer when she said she got into a heated argument with the captain of a flight bound for Fort Lauderdale after she raised concerns that the plane didn’t have enough fuel.

“I believed the incident was motivated by gender discrimination,” Clegg told the tribunal as she described being replaced on the flight for refusing to sign the flight plan over concerns about safety.

When she was later assigned to work on another flight with the same pilot, and raised concerns about it, she was effectively suspended without pay under what’s known as the airline’s “bidding around” system.

Air Canada, she said, defended the male pilot.

“It felt like open season on female pilots,” said Clegg. “This truly was the beginning of the end of my career.”