Christopher Loxton, for BA, said in its defence to the claim that passengers were not going down the steps in an “unusual or unexpected manner” and denied that the steps were damp.
He said that it was “not normal operating procedure” for crowd-control measures to be in place or for cabin crew to give directions, adding that staff did not see “any disorderly or unusual passenger disembarkation”.
He said: “It is the defendant’s case that the likely cause of the claimant’s fall was simply paying insufficient attention to the way in which she was descending the steps and that she lost her footing and fell down the same steps.”
Mr Loxton said that BA claimed that Ms Phillips “caused herself to come into contact” with other passengers or their luggage and failed to hold on to the handrails, meaning she “failed, in all the circumstances, to exercise reasonable skill and care”.
A hearing in the claim is yet to take place.