A former senior Qantas flight attendant is accused of exposing himself to a female colleague and touching her breasts during a flight, but he claims he had her consent…
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The claims against a former Qantas flight attendant
A 54-year-old former Qantas flight attendant is currently standing trial for committing two indecent acts during an April 2019 flight from Perth to Melbourne. Long story short, the 54-year-old man (who was the economy cabin supervisor) touched the breasts of a 21-year-old female colleague, and then exposed himself to her.
This whole incident happened while the two flight attendants were on a break in the back of the plane, in an area that had a curtain around it. The man’s side of the story is as follows:
- While the two were on a break, the 21-year-old flight attendant asked him about some of his experiences during his 23 years as a flight attendant, and she called him “a naughty boy” and asked if he had joined the mile high club, so he thought she was coming onto him
- The man started talking about how he had hooked up with crew members, and told her a story of how he hooked up with a female colleague with large breasts
- At that point he asked if he could touch her breasts, so he did that, and as he did so, he asked if her breasts were real, to which she responded that they were
- The man then said something about his genitals, before asking the woman if she wanted to see — at that point he “quickly undid [his] fly and exposed [his] penis for half a second and put it back in”
- She left the crew rest area shortly thereafter, and he said she “seemed fine,” and he even later made her a cup of peppermint tea
- The woman claims that the man asked her not to tell anyone about what happened, but he denies that
Again, the above is all the senior flight attendant’s version of events, so that’s only one side of the story.
Man claims chemical imbalance & consent
The man is defending himself by making a few claims:
- He had a chemical imbalance that caused this — “I had a chemical imbalance in my head and I put my hand around her shoulder and touched her left breast”
- He had her consent, and that she was the one who turned their conversation into an adult one, based on her questions and comments
- He simply “went along with it,” and “unfortunately it got out of hand”
If found guilty, the man could be facing up to seven years in jail.
A few things stand out to me about this story:
- The man should have known better here on so many levels — he was in a position of power over his colleague (in terms of his role, his age, etc.), he shouldn’t equate someone not actively saying “no” to consent, and he shouldn’t assume that someone is okay with sexual contact just because they were open to talking about something
- Regardless of whether or not the man had consent, this is an outrageously unprofessional way to be acting during a flight
- His defense is all over the place — was this due to a chemical imbalance, or is he sticking to his story that he had consent and he basically just went along with it?
Lastly, while this is by no means in any way a defense of what happened, the reality is that at a lot of airlines there’s a lot of funny business going on during layovers. For the most part this seems to fly under the radar more that it would at other workplaces, especially given that employees have layovers together, there are many cases where there’s consent, etc.
Still, sometimes I’m surprised there aren’t more cases like this where police reports end up being filed. After all, for all the wrong reasons “consent” can be a slippery slope when we’re talking about flight attendants having different ranks, when there’s alcohol involved, etc.
Bottom line
A former Qantas flight attendant is standing trial for what happened on an April 2019 flight, where he touched a colleague’s breasts and exposed himself to her. He claims he had a chemical imbalance, but also that he had her consent, seemingly based on her lack of actively stopping him.
I’ll be curious to see what comes of this trial.
Am I the only absolutely flabbergasted that there is such a thing as a straight Qantas flight attendant!?
So in conclusion he was found guilty of 2 offences and fined $12,000 (AUD).
Oh Daddy!!
Guess it's too much to ask an employer for a working environment that won't degenerate into sexual harassment, because, apparently, in the real world, attractive people should expect to be harassed... Got it.
Does the punishment fit the crime?
I consider a sentence of 7 years quite ri-dick-ulous.
He has since been terminated after an internal investigation carried out by Qantas.
Ben, a suggestion. Try and raise the tone a few notches. Your website is precious. The court can settle matters of sexual misconduct accusations.
@Ed,
that should be "Liberal" with a capital "L", as you're describing the political party not the political movement. Most people outside Aust aren't aware that the Liberal Party leans centre-right (despite being dragged further right in recent years like the Republicans in the US, and the Conservatives in the UK), as they were named after the classical liberalism movement.
But you are correct - based on their recent record, I'd be surprised if this...
@Ed,
that should be "Liberal" with a capital "L", as you're describing the political party not the political movement. Most people outside Aust aren't aware that the Liberal Party leans centre-right (despite being dragged further right in recent years like the Republicans in the US, and the Conservatives in the UK), as they were named after the classical liberalism movement.
But you are correct - based on their recent record, I'd be surprised if this person hasn't already been preselected in a safe seat.
This non-story should have been left to Gary at WFTW as part of his regular click-bait surely.
A safe liberal seat and swift promotion to the cabinet is on the cards for this dickhead.
@ Sel, D.:
Couldn't agree more. I worked as a server in several restaurants in college 20 years or so ago, and experienced many verbal sexist incidents, especially between the servers and the cooks. The Ryan Reynolds movie "Waiting" is very close to reality in that environment, at least as it was 20 years ago.
Nobody tell Lucky about the restaurant industry.
Consent or not it’s just plain stupid to be getting your freak on at your place of work!
Keep that for your time off work or the hotel when you lay over!
@Real Alpha Male
weak bait, name doesn't check out
Am I the only one that thinks OMAAT is digging the bottom of the barrel for things to post about?
@real alpha male what’s your definition of attractive ? You’re clearly uneducated
@Real Beta Troll
There’s actually a very easy way to hire whatever assistant you like without getting sued. It has worked wonders for me. I will share with you this trick: Don’t have romantic relationships, sexual relationships or sexually harass your coworkers. It’s actually very easy, you just have to let the words go through your brain before you let them out of your mouth.
@Jerry, you must be "extremely" naive to think that assistants are "only hired based in the anticipated merits of their job performance" . Sorry pal, this is not the way it works in the real world. Never has been and never will be... This is Human nature and natural selection at work
@Real Alpha Male
you sound incredibly fragile and insecure
The key element here is that he was the supervisor. That put him in a position of power so yes this is sexual harassment.
If someone is afraid of hiring someone because of that then they should ask themselves why...is it that they want to be able to sexually harass at will?
@Real Alpha Male -- You should just tell your "friends sitting on boards of large companies" to not pull their genitals out in front of any work associates. If they're able to avoid doing that, they can hire their assistants based on the anticipated merits of their job performance. Their physical appearance won't need to be a consideration.
Welcome to ByzzFeed
In a few years men won't even be allowed to talk to women for fear of being accused of harrassment lol.
Not surprising that many of my friends sitting on boards of large companies have secretly asked to STOP hiring attractive assistant.
I just wasted a minute reading this. And now wasted another 30 seconds of my life writing this.. I'm out of control
Yes of course, what 21-year-old doesn't want to see their 54-year-old supervisor whip out their junk out work. What a moron.
I understand Qantas terminated his employment after an internal investigation. This is according to ABC news in Australia.