A British Columbia court has approved a $4.5-million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over workplace harassment of flight attendants at WestJet.
The settlement was approved this week after a judge ruled it fair and in the best interest of the eligible employees, JFK Law states on its website.
The lawsuit alleged that WestJet failed to live up to its contractual “promise” to provide a harassment-free workplace.
Former flight attendant Mandalena Lewis, who spearheaded the suit, said she is experiencing “a whole wave of emotions” at the moment.
“I still feel anger,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Victoria on Friday.
“I’m glad this is over,” she qualified, framing the outcome as “the absolute best we could get.” But the dollar amount — the settlement works out to less than $500 per recipient — and the measures required of the company fall short of what she initially hoped for.
“It’s just a gross feeling.”
The agreement requires WestJet to retain a third party to conduct an assessment that looks at the prevalence of harassment in the workplace, underreporting and how response systems can be improved.
“They don’t have to do anything with that information,” said Lewis.
WestJet said Friday it was pleased to reach a settlement and will work to comply with it.
“Equally as important, we are committed to strengthening our operations and training, focused on the safety and well-being of all WestJetters and we are focused on advancing a culture of empowerment,” said spokesperson Jen Booth in an email.
The company confirmed that a judge signed off on the agreement.
It does not amount to an admission of liability or wrongdoing by WestJet, the settlement states.
The agreement applies to more than 3,400 current and former female flight attendants who worked for WestJet between April 2014 and February 2021, according to the law firm.
An online claims portal is being prepared and those who submit valid claims could receive roughly $470, the firm said.
The settlement marks the denouement of a legal saga that began in 2016, when Lewis filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court.
Fired less than two months earlier after eight years with WestJet, she has spoken publicly about what she calls “toxic” relations and “cowboy culture” at airlines.
In her lawsuit, she alleges that a pilot pinned her down in a hotel room and tried to force her to have sex during a layover in Hawaii in January 2010.
“I escaped being raped, but I was sexually assaulted,” she told The Canadian Press in 2019.
A warm Sunday evening on the sands of Maui’s Makena Beach Resort had led to a group dinner and then an invitation from the pilot to have drinks on his balcony, which she accepted, the lawsuit states.
Once in the room, he “dragged her onto the bed, kissing her and groping her” as she “physically resisted the assault and yelled for him to stop,” according to Lewis’s 2016 suit.
“It was a terrible situation. It was traumatizing,” Lewis had said in a phone interview.
She later learned that WestJet had investigated a complaint from a flight attendant two years earlier alleging the same pilot had sexually assaulted her during a layover in Alberta, according to the lawsuit. It states the company did not discipline or fire him, nor take steps to warn or protect women scheduled to work with him.
WestJet has denied the allegations, which have not been proven in court. The case remains on hold.
Lewis launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against her former employer in 2016.
The carrier failed to scuttle the action in the B.C. courts in 2017, after arguing that the dispute belongs in the quasi-judicial realm. In 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada also refused to hear WestJet’s arguments to quash the suit, which was certified in 2021.
In 2024, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered the airline to hand over all its files on harassment of flight attendants. The ruling by Justice Jacqueline Hughes said WestJet had been slow and “potentially adversarial” regarding the documents.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 14, 2026.
— With files from Aaron Sousa in Edmonton
