Mr G Johnston v International Airlines Group Cargo Limited — 2024

Mr G Johnston worked as a part-time resource planning analyst and was dismissed with effect from 7 November 2020 after a TUPE transfer and a reorganisation within International Airlines Group Cargo Limited. The respondent said the dismissal was by reason of redundancy, or alternatively for some other substantial reason arising from the reorganisation. The tribunal recorded that the claimant brought an ordinary unfair dismissal claim only; there was no claim under the Part-time Workers Regulations or for automatic unfair dismissal arising from the transfer.

The tribunal accepted that the respondent had carried out collective consultation and that the claimant had been invited into individual consultation, but it found that the selection process used to decide who would be dismissed was problematic. In particular, the respondent relied on a 70/30 comparison of old and new roles to decide whether roles were open, restricted or closed, but the tribunal held that this did not answer the legal question of whether the employer’s requirement for employees to carry out work of a particular kind had ceased or diminished. On the facts, the claimant’s former work was split into two specialist roles, while the team continued to carry out the same overall functions and also took on some additional work.

The tribunal also found that the scoring process for applications was opaque and unreliable. It noted inconsistencies in how 3 scores were treated, uncertainty about how attendance scores were generated, the lack of an auditable performance grade, and unclear moderation between managers and HR. Most significantly, the claimant was dismissed even though there was still a vacancy within his team for which he was suitable. The tribunal concluded that the respondent had not proved redundancy or some other substantial reason, had not shown a potentially fair reason for dismissal, and that the dismissal was unfair. Remedy was left for later determination.