Suspended mid-shift after decades on the job - and the airline's story shifted, the lawsuit claims
A long-serving Delta Air Lines worker says the airline pushed him out after nearly three decades on the job - and handed his role to someone far younger.
Brian Cullen, 54, sued Delta Air Lines on May 18, 2026, in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, alleging age discrimination under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. He worked as an aircraft load agent at Nashville International Airport from July 1996 until Delta suspended him without pay on January 15, 2025, and fired him on March 24, 2025. According to the complaint, he had no prior discipline and no performance improvement plans in his file.
The case is shaping up around a familiar HR pressure point: whether an internal investigation was fair, and whether the rules applied to one worker were applied to everyone else.
Cullen alleges Delta pulled him off an active shift on January 15, 2025, and into a conference room with a regional manager, two corporate security staff and an investigator. The complaint says he was told he "made a lot of money last year" and asked to account for his movements on a single day five months earlier. According to the filing, Delta then accused him of going to the employee parking lot late at night and bypassing security on other dates in the summer and fall of 2024.
Cullen says he had reasons for each instance - 20-hour double shifts, a heavy load of charter and ferry flights, broken oversized doors, and security gates that were closed overnight. According to the complaint, he asked Delta for the dates, times and badge swipe records, and the company refused.
The complaint says Delta took his badge, escorted him out, drove him to his car and told him not to speak to colleagues. He heard nothing for nearly 10 weeks, the filing says, before being told over the phone he was fired. Delta offered him the option to "retire," according to the complaint.
Two other agents - one in his 50s, one in his 60s - were called into similar meetings the same day, the complaint says. One was also fired. The other allegedly demonstrated he had been in Ohio on the dates in question. Cullen says Delta replaced both terminated workers with employees in their 30s.
A large portion of the filing is built around comparators - other workers who allegedly did similar things and kept their jobs. According to the complaint, younger employees routinely used the same entrances, drove company vehicles to the employee lot and off-airport restaurants, and bypassed security without losing their jobs. Cullen alleges that managers known as OSMs were repeatedly told they were violating security policy but were never suspended or discharged. Maintenance, parts and store department employees did the same, the complaint says.
The complaint also points to an internal email that Cullen says undercuts Delta's reasoning. According to the filing, a manager sent a 2024 message telling staff that employees without liquids did not have to go through security daily, and another manager printed it and posted it in the break room.
Cullen also alleges Delta's account shifted. The complaint says Delta later identified five bypass dates during the EEOC process - up from four - and changed some of the dates it had originally cited.
He filed his EEOC charge on July 4, 2025, and received a Notice of Right to Sue on February 20, 2026. He is seeking back pay, reinstatement or front pay, compensatory and liquidated damages, and attorneys' fees, alleging Delta's conduct was willful.
The allegations have not been tested in court. Delta has not yet filed a response, and no court has ruled on the claims.
