A Delta Air Lines captain has won a complete legal victory when the company finally threw in the towel on a six-year dispute that one judge said “weaponized” a mental health investigation against her. As we reported in 2020, Capt. Karlene Petitt was awarded $500,000 by a Labor Department tribunal. The airline was also forced to reinstate her as an international captain after determining airline executives plotted to use a bogus bipolar disorder diagnosis to bar her from flying. The action came after Petitt, who was working on a doctoral thesis, submitted a 43-page report critical of Delta’s safety culture. The airline paid a since-discredited doctor $76,000 to supply the diagnosis, which was twice refuted, including by a panel of Mayo Clinic experts. Delta vowed to appeal the award in the name of safety but made a “business decision” and folded its case last week.
“We made a business decision to settle the matter rather than appeal a decision that we disagreed with,” Delta spokeswoman Catherine Morrow told the Seattle Times. “Delta’s fitness for duty testing process for pilots is in place to ensure safety and it works.” Ironically, Petitt declined comment to the Times in observance of a company policy against talking to the media about work. She’s currently flying A330s between Seattle and Europe.
