British Airways sexually discriminated against a female pilot by refusing to allow her to fly part-time while her daughter is young, a tribunal heard today.

Jessica Starmer, 26, claims that the company’s "family-unfriendly working practices" were reinforcing its male-dominated ethos, and would force her to resign the job she loves.

Ms Starmer, from Wareham, Dorset, wants to halve her hours to allow her to share the care of her one-year-old daughter Beth with her husband Simon, who is also a BA pilot. She is claiming indirect sex discrimination and loss of earnings, the tribunal panel sitting at Watford heard.

"I have spent many years flying at every opportunity and have invested a great deal of time and effort working towards being able to earn my living through the activity I love," she said.

"I do not want to have to give up the job I have always wanted to do and worked so hard for."

Ms Starmer, a first officer who joined BA in 2001, told the hearing that she and her husband worked "extremely irregular" shift patterns, which meant very early starts, late finishes and overnight stays abroad which made it difficult for them to care for their child.

The work roster was allocated by a computerised "bidding" system, based on seniority, making it hard for the couple to dovetail their shifts so that someone was always free to care for Beth.

Ms Starmer told the hearing: "It was clear to me that following my daughter’s birth, I would not be able to return to work full-time. This was due to a combination of factors, but in particular the nature of the BA shifts meant that I could not look after Beth on any other basis other than 50 per cent part-time work."

She added that because of the irregular times she started and finished work, it was difficult to find a childminder and there was no room at her home for a live-in nanny.

According to Balpa, the British Air Line Pilots Association, which is supporting Ms Starmer in her discrimination claim, BA employs 2,980 pilots, including 152 women. In total, 72 BA pilots work part-time, including 18 women and 43 men working a 75 per cent contract - and 11 men who are permitted to work a 50 per cent contract.

Ms Starmer’s request to halve her hours was however refused by BA managers, but she was offered the opportunity to work 75 per cent part-time, which she said was not acceptable.

She told the hearing: "I believe that BA’s lack of accommodation for working mothers works to exclude females from its pilots and to reinforce, rather than reform, the traditional male dominance in its workforce."

The co-pilot and mother flies short haul across Europe in BA’s A320 (Airbus) fleet and before joining the airline, the Oxford graduate flew gliders for 10 years.

She made a formal request in February to halve her hours, but was refused. She was told merely that this was due to ’possible impacts on you, your colleagues and BA’, she told the hearing.

In April she was given a more detailed response with a range of reasons, from the cost of training two part-time pilots as opposed to one full-time, and the impact it would have on the reserve pilots who covered for colleagues unable to do their shifts.

Ms Starmer told the tribunal that BA said her request represented a health and safety risk because she was a junior pilot. But she found this incredible, as no-one had asked about her experience at any time during her application.

The tribunal heard that two other women pilots have applied to work half their usual hours, but they too were only offered only a 25 per cent reduction. Ms Starmer is provisionally working a 75 per cent contract but is using her holiday entitlement to bring it down to 50 per cent.

Outside the hearing, a Balpa spokesman said that in September BA had introduced a new rule that pilots needed to have more than 2,000 flying hours before they would be allowed to work 50 per cent part-time. Ms Starmer has accumulated only 1,100 hours.

David Fielding, a BA Airbus captain and Balpa representative, told the hearing that he regarded Ms Starmer as a "conscientious and safe" pilot. He said: "I’m not aware of any evidence suggesting that pilots with less than 1,200 flying hours represent an increased risk to safety if they work part-time.

"The reality is that BA recruited a number of women in their 20s over the last 10 years. It’s only now, as they increasingly become mothers, that problems, combining shift patterns and the number of hours (worked) with looking after children and the requirements of normal domestic life, are beginning to show."

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