Two women are suing the budget-friendly airline, Frontier, claiming that the company nor its employees did anything to respond to incidents of sexual assault during flights.
In the class-action suit filed in federal court in Colorado on December 16th, Lena Ramsay and an unidentified woman, who have both flown with Frontier, allege that they were sexually assaulted on separate flights in 2018.
According to lawsuit documents, Ramsay claims to have been assaulted by a male passenger during a flight from Denver, Colorado, to Providence, Rhode Island, in October 2018. She immediately reported the incident to a flight attendant. Shockingly, the flight attendant would not allow the victim to change seats. Adding insult to injury, the attendant reportedly failed to report the incident to her superiors or law enforcement properly. The second victim had a similar sexual assault happen to her during a flight from Denver to Florida in November 2018.
“Frontier can and has a duty to implement and enforce policies and procedures to prevent and deter in-flight sexual assaults and to properly respond to those that do occur, just as it does with other forms of passenger violence and disruption,” the suit states.
According to the suit, Frontier has also been non-cooperative in the investigation. When Ramsay made attempts to report the incident to the company, the airline refused to provide her with evidence, including the identity of the man who assaulted her or any of the other passengers who may have witnessed the assault. Furthermore, when the victims and their lawyers asked Frontier to disclose its policies and procedures for preventing sexual assaults during flights, the airline never responded.
The suit also notes that the FBI has issued a warning to airlines and air travelers, also in 2018, that the number of reports of sexual assaults on flights were increasing “at an alarming rate.”
Frontier knew or should have known of this growing prevalence of in-flight sexual assaults because it is widely available and known public knowledge,” the suit alleges.
The suit is seeking compensatory relief for the victims, as well as demanding that Frontier implement policies that will deter sexual harassment as well as provide training to staff in regards of sexual assault response during flights.
A Frontier spokeswoman refused to comment on the lawsuit, pending litigation. However, she did state that “the safety of our passengers and crew members is our No. 1 priority at Frontier Airlines and we have strict policies in place to proactively and appropriately respond to reports of misconduct and alleged crimes.”
