Qantas flight attendant sues after slipping on wet stairs

A Qantas flight attendant who slipped on wet stairs while exiting an aircraft at Brisbane Airport is suing the airline for $315,000.

An aerobridge connecting to Qantas A380. Picture: LHR Airports

A Qantas flight attendant who slipped on wet stairs while exiting an aircraft at Brisbane Airport is suing the airline for $315,000.

Margaret Chapman, 47, suffered shoulder, neck and thumb injuries in a fall that left her with a permanent impairment and less employable than before the incident in April 2015.

A statement of claim filed in the Brisbane District Court by Patinos Personal Lawyers said Qantas should have known that using mobile stairs from aircraft in inclement weather would expose flight attendants to the risk of slipping. It was also claimed Qantas should have provided stairs that were not slippery when wet and should have provided training and instruction in the safe manner of descending the mobile stairs in wet weather.

The claim said Qantas failed to carry out an adequate risk assessment of the task of descending the stairs when wet. “But for the negligence of the defendant (Qantas), the plaintiff (Ms Chapman) would not have suffered said injuries,” the claim said. “The defendant required the plaintiff to perform her work duties in an unsafe manner.”

Qantas is yet to lodge its response to the claim and was not willing to comment to The Australian, as the case is before the court. However, it is understood that in some circumstances such as when an aircraft is parked away from a gate with an aerobridge, Qantas has no choice but to use mobile stairs in all weather conditions. Mobile stairs or ramps are also used at airports such as the Gold Coast and Hobart where there are no aerobridges.

A Flight Attendants Association of Australia spokesman said cases of cabin crew slipping on mobile stairs were extremely rare.

Earlier this year, mobile stairs being used to board a Ural Airlines A320 in Barnaul, Russia, failed, causing six passengers to fall to the ground. The same airline was involved in a similar incident in St Petersburg in 2017, when two passengers fell from a collapsed platform as they disembarked a flight.

In another Australian case, an elderly passenger sued Jetstar in 2010 for not providing safe access to the aircraft after slipping up stairs at Brisbane Airport.

When the District Court found in favour of the passenger, the airline appealed and won, successfully arguing that it was not liable for his injuries, under the Civil Aviation (Carriers Liability) Act.