American Airlines will pay $200,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced.
According to the EEOC’S lawsuit, American Airlines failed to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee at its Fort Worth location after she developed cortical blindness.
The lawsuit alleged that the employee requested to use screen reader software to convert text and other information on computers into synthesized speech as a reasonable accommodation, which would allow her to use the company’s computer systems to perform her job duties. Alternatively, the employee requested to be transferred to another position, the suit said.
The lawsuit charged American Airlines with failing to take legally required steps to enable the employee to use the screen reader software for her job or help her find another reasonable accommodation, instead keeping her on unpaid, involuntary leave for almost four years and then firing her after failing to facilitate her return to work.
The type of conduct alleged in the EEOC’s complaint violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for the known disabilities of employees absent an undue hardship and prohibits employers from terminating employees on the basis of their disabilities, including when their terminations are caused by the employers’ failure to provide reasonable accommodation.
The EEOC filed suit (U.S. EEOC v. American Airlines, Inc., Case No. 4:25-cv-01056-P) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.
In addition to paying $200,000 in monetary relief to the blind employee involved in the case, under the two-year consent decree resolving this lawsuit, American Airlines also committed to integrating the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines into its development of new, accessible reservation software the company is projecting to launch in 2027.
Source: EEOC
Topics Aviation
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