ATLANTA — A family's eight-hour Delta flight from New York to Greece turned into a nightmare, according to a new lawsuit filed against the Atlanta-based airline.
Parents filed a lawsuit in New York against Delta Air Lines alleging flight attendants overserved alcohol to a drunk passenger and engaged in negligence when they failed to take action.
The lawsuit also alleges the drunk passenger inappropriately touched their teen daughter on the flight while engaging in his disorderly behavior, according to a lawsuit.
Parents stated in the lawsuit that the incident happened last Wednesday.
11Alive reached out to Delta for a statement regarding the incident. They provided the following statement below:
“While we don’t have any specific comment on this pending litigation, Delta has zero tolerance for customers who engage in inappropriate or unlawful behavior. Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and our people.”
It all started when the airline's flight attendants kept serving the disorderly passenger more alcohol, the suit states.
The man switched seats with a woman who wanted to sit next to her husband on the flight. As he got more intoxicated, he allegedly began talking to the teen daughter who was seated right next to him.
The teen became uncomfortable where she then politely asked the man to stop talking to her. Parents allege that the man became aggressive towards their daughter and began asking her questions loudly. One of the questions the drunk man allegedly asked the teen was about her exact address.
She then became frightened and turned to her mother who was seated right beside her in an aisle seat.
The man then began touching the girl inappropriately, the suit states, and ran to the bathroom and vomited.
As he was in the bathroom, one of the passenger asked the mother and daughter if they were okay and said, "I feel sorry you guys have to deal with that."
Parents and the teen asked flight attendants to stop serving the man alcohol, according to the suit, but he came back from the bathroom with another drink reportedly in hand.
He then allegedly began touching under the teen's shirt and inappropriately touching the mother of the girl.
They both jumped out of their seats and asked the flight attendants to take action. Parents stated in the lawsuit that they failed to listen to them. The mother and daughter even asked the flight attendants to speak to the captain after requesting to speak with supervisors and much more.
When they asked to be move away from the man, according to the suit the flight attendants told them there was nothing they could do.
It states flight attendants told the family that they could call the police once the flight lands, but the parents allege in the lawsuit that they found no record that the police were called.
Eventually, a Good Samaritan switched seats with the teen girl and sat next to the drunk passenger for the rest of the flight.
Delta awarded the family and the Good Samaritan free SkyMiles for any inconveniences, the suit states.
The lawsuit stated that the airline violated the act of reporting the sexual misconduct to appropriate law enforcement, failing to stop serving alcohol to the intoxicated individual and violated the human rights law for letting them remain seated next to the disorderly passenger.
Attorneys representing the family are asking that the airline pays for damages in a jury trial.
