Ms Charlotte Smith v British Airways plc — 2021

The claimant applied for a cabin crew role and disclosed dyslexia. The respondent accepted that dyslexia was a disability and that it knew of the claimant's disability. The tribunal recorded that the sole claim was failure to make reasonable adjustments, not discrimination arising from disability or any other discrimination claim.

For the first assessment day on 7 March 2019, the respondent accepted that the claimant's specific adjustment requirements had not been properly communicated to the assessment coordinator. The claimant was not facilitated to use her assistive technology for reading the assessment materials, which the respondent accepted placed her at a substantial disadvantage. She passed the group assessment but failed the individual role play assessment and did not proceed to interview.

The respondent apologised and arranged a second assessment day. The tribunal found that on 10 April 2019 the claimant was given 25 percent extra time and was permitted to use assistive technology for the role play assessment, which she passed. For the interview, the tribunal found that the agreed adjustments of time and assistive technology were either provided or not required, and that the respondent did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that further interview adjustments were needed.

The tribunal awarded £1,000 for injury to feelings for the 7 March 2019 failure. It treated the matter as a one-off unintentional administrative error, found that the injury to feelings lasted up to one week because the respondent apologised and rectified the situation by 14 March, and did not award other compensation because no evidential basis had been provided.