The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spring break travel peaks today EEOC sues brewery after chef’s firing
Customs prepares for big increase in international traffic. Buckhead eatery Iron Hill is accused of race and sex bias.
Spring break travel is ramping up at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, with more than 335,000 passengers expected to pass through the world’s busiest airport today.
That includes more than 90,000 passengers passing through security checkpoints, with thousands of others arriving and connecting at the Atlanta airport.
Today is expected to be the busiest day of the spring break period at Hartsfield-Jackson. The second-busiest is expected to be Sunday, with more than 323,000 passengers moving through the airport.
An estimated 3.6 million people are expected to pass through the Atlanta airport from March 27 through April 7, the busiest stretch of the spring break travel period that started in mid-March.
Some locales in Florida known as prime spring break destinations in past years, including Miami, have sought to limit the rowdy crowds and associated crime. But Miami International Airport says it is still seeing record crowds, with passenger volumes up about 9% year-over-year.
Orlando International Airport also is having its busiest weeks of the year over the spring break period, seeing an 11% increase in passengers year-over-year.
In Atlanta, airport officials are advising travelers to get to the airport at least 2 1/2 hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights.
While today will bring the biggest crowds streaming into the domestic terminal, Saturday is expected to be a peak day for international travel to the Atlanta airport, according to Zachary Thomas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Atlanta port director.
“This Saturday is equivalent to our busiest day last year,” with about 23,000 international passengers arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson, Thomas said. That’s on par with international volumes last July during the peak summer period.
“People are eager to travel, eager to see family members,” Thomas said. “Throughout the pandemic, there were a lot of pent-up travel desires that really weren’t met and now they’re eager to get back out and see the world.”
International traffic is up about 18% year-over-year in Atlanta, according to Thomas, looking at figures for the fiscal year that started in October.
“We have surpassed pre-pandemic levels pretty significantly,” Thomas said. Normally, spring is a slower season, but “we’re seeing numbers that are commensurate with last year’s summer season.”
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has added flights, with plans to fly its largest-ever trans-Atlantic flight schedule this summer. On Thursday, it launched flights from Atlanta to a new airport in Tulum, Mexico, as part of its largest-ever spring break schedule to Mexico.
Including domestic and international travel, Delta Air Lines is seeing record demand for spring break, with plans to handle nearly 15 million customers over the period from March 9 through April 14.
Atlanta also has gained some new carriers, including South American airline Latam launching flights to Lima, Peru, in October and Scandinavian Airlines planning to start service to Copenhagen, Denmark, in June. Discount carrier Avelo Airlines plans to offer flights from New Haven, Connecticut, to Atlanta in May.
Other carriers are adding service in Atlanta, including Aeromexico announcing plans for more routes to Mexico pending government approvals and Alaska Airlines launching a route to Portland, Oregon, starting Oct. 1.
Thomas, the port director, suggests that travelers “pack their patience,” with some Customs wait times reaching one to two hours during peak periods.
“It’s very crowded,” said Alex Krijgsman, who arrived on a flight from the Netherlands this week to visit family on a spring break vacation in Big Canoe, Georgia, before driving to Florida. But he said going through Customs was “very quick.”
There are options to expedite your way through Customs, including a Global Entry trusted traveler membership, which costs $100 to enroll for five years and now has an app, or the free Mobile Passport Control app.
At Hartsfield-Jackson, CBP offers interviews seven days a week for arriving international passengers who have applied for Global Entry membership. The agency also aims to eventually open a Global Entry interview location at Hartsfield-Jackson for passengers departing on domestic or international flights.
A Buckhead brewery has been hit with a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accused of firing a Black chef after he reported widespread race and sex discrimination.
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant on Peachtree Road violated the Civil Rights Act, according to a complaint lodged Monday in a Georgia federal court.
The EEOC claims Iron Hill fired a Black chef in July 2021 after he complained to management about the mistreatment of Black, Hispanic and female staff. The chef, who began working at the brewery in November 2020, was sent home after asking to be treated “like a human being,” according to the complaint. He was also called a racial slur by a senior chef, the EEOC alleged.
“The use of racial slurs was commonplace in (Iron Hill’s) kitchen and workplace,” the complaint states. “At least one non-African American bartender made racial remarks against African American employees and customers, to include that ‘there were too many Black servers’ and that he ‘wanted pretty white faces in the bar.’”
Iron Hill is a national chain with locations in Buckhead and Dunwoody. Outside Georgia, the franchise has locations in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
Both Iron Hill Brewery of Buckhead LLC and Iron Hill Brewery LLC are named as defendants in the lawsuit. They did not immediately respond Thursday to questions about the case.
The chef fired from the Buckhead brewery first reported workplace sex and race discrimination in early June 2021, the EEOC claimed. It said the chef ’s concerns
included that Hispanic employees were improperly removed from the work schedule and that a server, a breastfeeding mother, was forced to pump breast milk in a public restroom because managers refused to leave the restaurant’s private office.
The chef was told by the brewery’s acting general manager that he was due to be fired for speaking up, according to the lawsuit. The EEOC said the chef ’s supervisor began to disrespect him immediately after the chef complained.
In early July 2021, the chef received a final written warning, though no prior warnings had been issued, the lawsuit states. The warning accused the chef of acting aggressively when asking to be treated like a human being, per the complaint.
When told by a senior employee on July 11, 2021, to “tone it down,” the chef responded in a text message “I’m not going to do anything fireable and I won’t be intimidated to quit.” The chef was fired the same day, the EEOC said.
The agency said the bartender whose racist remarks prompted complaints was not fired.
The EEOC said it reached out to Iron Hill in September after finding reasonable cause to believe that the brewery had violated federal law. The agency said Iron Hill did not proffer an acceptable agreement for “informal methods of conciliation to endeavor to eliminate the unlawful employment practices and provide appropriate relief.”
Back pay, job reinstatement and compensation for humiliation, among other things, are sought for the chef in the EEOC’s case.
Iron Hill’s Buckhead location opened in 2020 and the Dunwoody location the following year.