Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, COVERAGE, LIABILITY—D. Ariz.: American Airlines, never named in EEOC charge, gets pilot’s discrimination claims dismissed, (Oct 14, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

The pilot was putatively hired by a subsidiary of American, but because he never mentioned American in his EEOC filings, he had failed to administratively exhaust his claims.

Dismissing a pilot’s ADEA and Title VII discrimination claims asserted against American Airlines, a federal district court in Arizona determined that he had failed to administratively exhaust those claims as he only ever named American’s subsidiary, Envoy, in his EEOC filings. None of the exceptions to the general rule that Title VII claimants may only sue those named in the EEOC charge applied in this instance, given that American played no role in the hiring process, did not ratify Envoy’s conduct, did nothing to raise an inference that it directly violated Title VII or the ADEA, and was unaware of the underlying EEOC proceedings. Further, the court found that dismissal was also warranted for failure to state a claim (Aityahia v. Envoy Air Inc., No. CV-24-02126-PHX-DWL (D. Ariz. Oct. 9, 2025)).

The pilot in this case is of Algerian national origin and was 57 years old at the time he filed this lawsuit. Envoy is a subsidiary of Envoy Aviation Group, which in turn is a subsidiary of American Airlines Group, of which American is a wholly owned subsidiary.

Conditional offer. On October 21, 2022, the pilot was issued a conditional offer of employment from Envoy. After attending a local recruitment event and submitting to a drug test, the pilot was informed on December 8 that the offer was being rescinded because he did not pass the remaining portion of the hiring process.

EEOC charges. Subsequently, the pilot filed his first charge against Envoy with the EEOC alleging age discrimination. He then applied for another position with Envoy on December 7, 2023. The following day, he was notified that he was not qualified for the position. He filed a second charge with the EEOC against Envoy, alleging charges of national origin discrimination and retaliation.

Lawsuit. After receiving a right-to-sue letter, the pilot, proceeding pro se, filed this complaint. On June 2, 2025, the court granted American’s motion to dismiss the complaint with leave to amend. On June 16, the pilot filed his first amended complaint (FAC), which added several allegations intended to remedy the deficiencies in his initial complaint, including the fact the Envoy advertises a direct career path to American, that it provides flight services to American customers, that it determines who it will send to American as enrollee pilots, and that American automatically accepts the enrollee pilots chosen by Envoy.

American filed another motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust and for failure to state a claim, which the court here considered.

Failure to exhaust. First, the court addressed American’s arguments for failure to exhaust. The court identified five exceptions to the general rule that Title VII claimants may sue only those named in an EEOC charge and addressed each exception in turn.

Hiring involvement. The first exception identified by the court was whether American was involved in the acts giving rise to the EEOC claims. The court found this exception to be inapplicable in this instance, noting that the FAC did not allege that American was involved in the challenged hiring decisions, which were the acts that gave rise to the pilot’s EEOC claims.

For example, the FAC alleged that American “unconditionally enrolls a set proportion or number of Envoy pilots into every cohort of its entering pilot program,” that “Envoy determines who it will send as its share of these enrollee pilots,” and that “[American] automatically accepts the enrollee pilots Envoy chooses.”

Such allegations indicated that American played no role in the hiring process and were thus inconsistent with the notion that American was involved in the acts giving rise to the pilot’s EEOC claims, explained the court.

Ratification. As to the pilot’s argument that American benefits from Envoy’s hiring decisions and thus ratifies its hiring decisions in a manner that qualifies as “involvement” in those decisions, the court was unmoved.

Even assuming that Envoy acts or purports to act on behalf of American, the FAC nowhere alleged that American knew anything about Envoy’s hiring practices generally or about Envoy’s decisions with respect to the pilot specifically, observed the court. Indeed, the FAC acknowledged that American “does not interview” the Envoy pilots “or make them undergo any of the [American] recruitment process.”

Anticipation of lawsuit. Turning to the second exception identified by the court—whether American should have anticipated being sued—the court found that this exception was inapplicable here because the FAC did not allege facts sufficient to establish that either American or the EEOC should have anticipated American being named in a Title VII or ADEA suit for Envoy’s conduct.

This conclusion flowed from the analysis regarding the other exceptions, including the fact that American was not involved in the acts giving rise to the EEOC claims and that it did not ratify Envoy’s conduct.

Agency relationship. The third exception noted by the court involved that of an agency relationship between Envoy and American. Here, the court found the FAC did not allege facts sufficient to trigger this exception. The FAC did not explicitly allege that Envoy acted as an “agent” of American, nor did the details regarding the relationship between American and Envoy alleged in the FAC support such a conclusion.

“Notably absent from the FAC is any allegation indicating an agreement between Envoy and American that Envoy was subject to American’s control,” said the court.

In addition, the pilot failed to plausibly allege the existence of apparent authority. The FAC nowhere alleged that American made any manifestations that Envoy was its agent. Although the FAC identified various manifestations by Envoy that, in the pilot’s view, suggested an agency relationship, in order to create apparent authority the manifestations must come from the principal (American) rather than from the purported agent (Envoy), explained the court.

Inference. With regard to the fourth exception, which concerns the inference that the unnamed party violated Title VII or the ADEA, the court noted that the pilot’s two EEOC charges only mentioned his experiences with Envoy, and there was no reason the EEOC would have inferred from that information that a distantly related corporate entity violated Title VII or the ADEA.

Notice, participation. The last exception identified by the court—notice of, and participation in, EEOC proceedings—was inapplicable here because the pilot did not allege that American had notice of or participated in the proceedings. Accordingly, the pilot’s claims were dismissed based on a lack of administrative exhaustion.

Failure to state a claim. Although the court could have ended its analysis here, it went on to address American’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Here, it found that the FAC did not allege facts sufficient to establish that American and Envoy constituted an integrated enterprise. Most importantly, explained the court, the FAC did not allege facts sufficient to give rise to an inference that Envoy’s and American’s labor relations were under “centralized control,” noting that the FAC affirmatively alleged that Envoy has “ultimate authority” over its hiring procedures and American has no direct involvement. For similar reasons, the court found that the joint-employer doctrine did not apply to this case, and American’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim was granted.

Leave to amend. Finally, the court agreed with American that leave to amend should be denied on futility grounds, noting that it had provided specific guidance to the pilot in its June 2 order regarding the types of facts he would have to plead to survive dismissal. Because he was unable to craft a viable complaint even after receiving such guidance, the court found no reason to believe that another amendment opportunity would yield a different result.

The case is No. CV-24-02126-PHX-DWL.

Judge: Lanza, D.

Attorneys: Aziz Aityahia, pro se. Lindsay Jo Fiore (Greenberg Traurig) for Envoy Air Inc.

Companies: Envoy Air Inc.

Cases: CoverageLiability Discrimination AgeDiscrimination NationalOrigin Procedure Retaliation ArizonaNews