Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Court: Vision Airlines crew can seek punitive damages in hazard-pay dispute

A North Las Vegas charter airline must face trial on punitive damage claims that it failed to pay its pilots and crew extra “hazard pay” for flying into Iraq and Afghanistan on government missions during the wars there, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The ruling, filed Wednesday, goes against Vision Airlines Inc., which pilots and crew members alleged pocketed the hazard pay.

A jury in 2010 awarded the pilots and crew members actual damages of $5.27 million — including interest and costs — but the lower court ruled that punitive damages could not be sought.

Wednesday’s ruling by the Court of Appeals allows the plaintiffs to move forward in seeking punitive damages.

According to court documents, during the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. established an “air bridge” to deliver supplies through war zones to U.S. posts in Baghdad, Iraq, and Kabul, Afghanistan.

The U.S. contracted with private airlines, such as Vision, to deliver supplies to those posts, and it provided “hazard pay” for the pilots and crew.

According to court documents, the contract said Vision pilots, first officers and international relief officers were to receive $5,000 in hazard pay per round-trip flight. Other crew members, including attendants and mechanics, were to receive $3,000 per round trip in hazard pay.

The court said that in the summer of 2005, Vision paid some of the hazard pay to its pilots. By August of 2005, however, Vision stopped paying hazard pay to any of its employees “and it kept the money for its own benefit,” the court said.

“In addition to ceasing its intermittent distribution of hazard pay, Vision also fired all pilots and crew members who knew about or had previously received hazard pay, and it replaced them with employees who were unaware that they were entitled to it,” Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote in Wednesday’s ruling.

A class action lawsuit was filed in January 2009 on behalf of pilots and crew members seeking $21 million in damages.

Vision has claimed that in the contract between it and its upstream contractors, “there is no amount that is separated or allocated for hazard pay.”

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