US airline sued after mother and daughter groped by heavily drunk co-passenger during nine-hour flight

Gulf Today Report

Nowadays the behaviour of passengers on flights has been going from bad to worse. Whether it is relieving themselves on co-passengers, having fisticuffs with other travellers, or even arguing or even assaulting cabin crew – there is no end to it. Most of the time the passengers are stone drunk.

But one particular incident that happened last year has shattered all rules of propriety and civility in air travel. According to reports in sections of the media, a male passenger who had drunk at least 10 vodkas and a glass of wine made life miserable for a woman and her teenage daughter sitting next to him by touching them inappropriately and even groping them during a nine-hour Delta Air Lines flight. A $2 million lawsuit has been filed against the airline on Tuesday.

The lawsuit has accused the airline of gross negligence and requests compensation for the victims. The plane was flying from JFK Airport in New York to Athens on July 26, 2022.

The cabin crew continued to serve the man drinks although he was totally sloshed, ‘blatantly ignoring’ pleas from the plaintiffs, according to reports in sections of the media.

The drunk man behaved aggressively toward the plaintiffs and inappropriately touched both over a nearly nine-hour flight.

The lawsuit further claims that the staff allegedly permitted the drunken man to leave the plane after it landed without alerting local authorities or US law enforcement about the alleged sexual assault, Fox Business reported.

"The intoxicated Delta passenger appeared to be getting drunker and drunker as the Delta flight attendants continued serving him alcohol," the complaint states.

The man, after a few drinks, tried speaking to the 16-year-old girl who tried to ignore him. This infuriated him and he began yelling at her.

The man was simply going berserk and the crew appeared not to do anything about it. He made "obscene gestures” and demanded to know her address. He then started putting his hands on her back.

At this stage, the girl’s mother intervened and told the man that her daughter was a minor. The man then suddenly pulled the woman's arm.

The harried woman then told the flight attendants and told them that they were feeling unsafe, but the reaction appeared to be casual: they just walked away after they were told to be ‘patient.’

The drunk mumbled that he was from Connecticut and began touching the minor again. He was kicking the seats in front of them. 

At one point, the flight attendant intervened and told the man to stop talking to the plaintiffs. The man started shouting obscenities at the mother-daughter duo, calling them “f*****g b*****s”.

The teenager was terrified and began to have a panic attack. She put her head down in her mother's lap – and that's when the man allegedly slid his "clammy fingers" underneath her shirt. "Trembling, petrified and crying," the teen leapt out of her seat and away from the man, the lawsuit states.

The man put his hand on the mother's leg and allegedly "began moving his hand". She screamed too and jumped out of her seat.

The woman again demanded to change their seat, but the flight attendants allegedly said that there was nothing they could do. Moments later, a male passenger volunteered to switch seats with the teen girl and sat between the intoxicated man and her mother for the rest of the flight.

Once the plane landed, the flight attendants offered the woman and her daughter 5,000 free airline miles and an apology.

But this had no impact on the horrified and hassled mother-daughter duo who subsequently filed the lawsuit.