About 800 flight service specialists will file a lawsuit to stop the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from outsourcing their jobs.

The lawsuit will focus on age discrimination, as nearly 1,800 of the 2,500 employees who lost jobs were over 40 years old. According to attorney Rebecca Hamburg of Gebhardt and Associates, the lawsuit will argue that FAA outsourced its flight service function to Lockheed Martin to avoid paying retirement benefits to employees.

The lawsuit will be filed on March 31 at the U.S. District court for the District of Columbia, and will seek an immediate injunction to stop the transfer of jobs to Lockheed.

Last February, FAA awarded a five-year contract to Lockheed to assume full control of flight service operations by October 2005. In the same month, flight service specialists filed an age discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hamburg said that under the 1967 Age Discrimination Employment Act, employees could bypass the administrative process and file suit in federal court 30 days after notifying the EEOC.