New Delhi: A woman in the US has filed a $2-million lawsuit against Delta Air Lines, accusing the airline of gross negligence after an inebriated man seated next to her and her minor daughter allegedly sexually harassed them over a nine-hour flight from JFK Airport in New York to Athens, Greece, earlier last week, Fox Business reported Saturday.
The lawsuit, claiming compensation for the woman and her daughter, also reportedly claims that the crew allowed the drunken man to deboard at Athens without alerting either the local authorities or US law enforcement about the alleged sexual assault.
According to the lawsuit filed last Tuesday, the flight attendants “blatantly ignored” the woman’s pleas for help as the man behaved aggressively. It goes on to allege that the crew had served the man at least 10 glasses of vodka and a glass of wine before he groped the woman and her 16-year-old daughter.
“The intoxicated Delta passenger appeared to be getting drunker and drunker as the Delta flight attendants continued serving him alcohol,” the Fox Business report cites the lawsuit as saying.
According to the report, the lawsuit alleges that the man gesticulated at them, sought to know their address and even grabbed the woman. It claims that the man got so loud that other passengers began noticing the ruckus but when the woman raised the issue with the flight attendants, she was asked to “be patient”.
It says the unidentified man mentioned that he was from Connecticut and continued to harass the minor. Sometime amid this, the man also allegedly rushed to the washroom, and could be heard puking. However, when the man returned, he was allegedly carrying a glass of red wine.
The lawsuit alleges that the woman asked for the man to be shifted to another seat but their requests went unheeded.
Media reports cite the lawsuit as claiming that on several requests from the woman, flight crew told the man to “stop talking to them,” which led to a barrage of insults directed at the woman.
At that point, the minor was scared and allegedly had a panic attack. When she put her head in her mother’s lap for comfort, the man allegedly groped her, says the lawsuit.
It says that while the flight attendants claimed they could not help the woman, another male passenger swapped seats with the minor and sat between the drunk man and the woman.
According to Fox Business, the crew offered an apology to the woman along with 5,000 free airline miles. The report quotes a statement from Delta that does not comment on the pending suit, but says the airline has “zero tolerance for customers who engage in inappropriate or unlawful behaviour.”
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