Airline flight attendants will not benefit from workplace nursing protections afforded under the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers (PUMP) Act, which passed in the U.S. Senate in December.

In a Law360 article, labor and employment partner Mishell Parreno Taylor in the Los Angeles and Houston offices explained that businesses have long grappled with lactation accommodations and airlines are no exception.

"I think businesses have done what they can, as far as they can, and even sometimes beyond obviously what the law requires, [to] try to accommodate individuals when it comes to expressing milk," Parreno Taylor said. "As a society, I think we're moving in that direction of giving more access and providing more access for expressing mothers."

"Even though the PUMP Act has an express carve-out for air crew members," Law360 wrote, "'it's not something that the airline industry is now just going to not have to address,' Parreno Taylor said. 'I think the question is how do they work through that practically.'"