Frontier Passengers File Lawsuit Claiming Airline Ignored Sexual Assault Complaints

Two passengers who claim they were sexually assaulted on a Frontier Airlines plane are suing the airline, accusing the carrier of refusing to help.

The lawsuit was filed in Denver on December 16 and accused the airline of not responding to the assaults and not having proper follow-up afterward, The Denver Post reported.

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One woman said she was assaulted by a man on a October 2018 flight from Denver, Colo. to Providence, R.I., and when she reported the incident to a flight attendant, she was not allowed to change her seat. When she later reported the assault to the airline directly, they allegedly did not cooperate in providing her with evidence she could use. The other passenger was assaulted in November 2018 on a flight from Denver to Florida.

The lawsuit says that both women reported the instances to a flight attendant. In neither case did the flight attendant pass on the information to anyone else nor did law enforcement meet the plane once it had landed.

"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 says.

The class-action lawsuit seeks to represent anyone else who experienced sexual assault on a Frontier Airlines flight from December 16, 2017 to the present.

A Frontier spokesperson said she could not comment on pending litigation but told USA Today that “the safety of our passengers and crew members is our number one priority at Frontier Airlines and we have strict policies in place to proactively and appropriately respond to reports of misconduct and alleged crimes.”

Last year, the FBI said that the number of sexual assault allegations onboard commercial flights was increasing “at an alarming rate,” CNN reported.

Earlier this month, a group of female pilots and flight attendants also filed a suit against Frontier, alleging the airline forced unpaid pregnancy leave upon them and did not provide adequate conditions for breastfeeding.

Although the airline denied these allegations, per NPR, a spokeswoman said that the airline "has strong policies in place in support of pregnant and lactating mothers and remains committed to treating all of its team members equally and fairly" and that "Frontier offers a number of accommodations for pregnant and lactating pilots and flight attendants within the bounds of protecting public safety, which is always our top priority."