Late-night message requesting food included ‘insidious trope’ about Black people
A 17-year airline captain with a spotless record was dismissed with just cause after sending a late-night email in early 2025, and an arbitrator recently upheld the firing.
The decision, released May 21, by sole arbitrator Jesse Nyman, dismissed a grievance the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) brought against Sunwing Airlines, now owned by WestJet.
Captain Darren Acri had been dismissed in February 2025, and the union called the discharge far too steep for a long-service pilot with a clean record. Nyman, however, disagreed.
Food requests from pilot
On an April 2024 layover in Fredericton, Acri was put in a hotel outside the city centre that he felt breached the collective agreement. Over about five hours, he emailed crew staff, managers and union reps for a taxi into town so he could pick up his own food.
Management refused transportation but offered to order and deliver food.
At 1:06 a.m., after hours of back and forth, Acri placed his order: "Can I get a large bucket of fried chicken, with slices of watermelon and a six pack of non-alcoholic Bud light beer for me and my friends?"
The piplot was pulled from service that day pending an investigation into a code-of-conduct violation. After an external investigator's report, Sunwing fired him on Feb. 5, 2025.
Racist message to supervisor
Sunwing argued the message was no meal request but a deliberate play on a racist stereotype, sent to a wide group that included Michael Simmons, Acri's direct supervisor and a Black man.
The arbitrator agreed it was not, on a balance of probabilities, a real food order. Nyman pointed to the timing. The order came five hours after Acri first asked for transportation and two hours after the last offer to feed him, with no follow-up.
The arbitrator also noted Acri never produced the friend he said picked up similar food, leaving that account uncorroborated, and wrote: "It is a well-worn and insidious trope that Black people eat fried chicken and watermelon."
Simmons had filed a harassment complaint, and the arbitrator found the email demeaned him in front of colleagues, even if it was not aimed at him directly. The conduct, he concluded, was serious and deliberate, drafted hours after the food offer.
Why two apologies were not enough
ALPA did not dispute that the email was racist or that some discipline was warranted; its case was that discharge was too severe and Acri should be reinstated with conditions. He had apologized twice, in May 2024 and February 2025, saying he had not grasped the stigma attached to the order and was sorry for the misunderstanding.
The arbitrator took those messages at face value and found they did the opposite of what an apology should, deflecting blame and recasting intentional conduct as an innocent mix-up. He was also unmoved by the request for sensitivity training, seeing no sign it would be more than a rote exercise.
Sunwing relied on Article 24.1.2 of the collective agreement, which let it discipline at any step depending on the offence's severity.
Acri's long service and clean record weighed in his favour, and the arbitrator treated the conduct as a single incident. Even so, he found they could not offset the absence of genuine remorse in the apologies, which gave little assurance the behaviour would not recur.
Upholding the firing, the arbitrator wrote that "despite the harsh consequence, just cause for termination is established and there is an insufficient basis to vary the penalty." The grievance was dismissed.
