The airline trained staff and ran annual checks - a court still found that wasn't enough

An airline trained its cabin crew and checked them yearly. A court still ordered it to pay $602,000 over one routine task.

On June 18, 2026, the Supreme Court of Queensland ordered Alliance Airlines to pay $602,068.02 to a former flight attendant and cabin manager who injured her back pulling a catering cart from its galley slot before takeoff.

It was a task she had done many times before. Before an originating flight, crew were required to pull each cart out of its bay to check inside and behind it for weapons or devices. The catch was the space. The stowage bay was only 88 centimetres wide, and a full cart ran 81 centimetres long - leaving almost no room to stand square behind it. Crew tended to pull from the side, in a twisted stance.

On April 15, 2020, one cart would not budge. The worker pulled harder, then applied what she called "maximum force." The cart released suddenly, and she felt immediate pain in her lower back. The injury, diagnosed as a back strain or musculoligamentous injury to the lumbar spine, never fully resolved, and she could no longer work as a flight attendant.

The court found the likely cause was the wheels of neighbouring carts overlapping and jamming in the cramped bay - a foreseeable problem, not a faulty cart.

Alliance argued its general manual-handling training was sufficient and that jammed carts were rare. The court rejected that. It found the airline...

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