A federal lawsuit was filed against Delta Air Lines last week accusing flight attendants of failing to intervene after a male passenger was allegedly served at least 10 alcoholic drinks and then groped a mother and her 16-year-old daughter, according to the filing.
The plaintiff in the suit, filed in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday, is only identified as the parent of the teenager. According to the filing, the girl and her mother were traveling to Athens, Greece, from New York City on a nearly nine-hour flight last year when the incident allegedly occurred.
"Over the first three hours of the flight, the Delta flight attendants served the intoxicated Delta passenger approximately ten vodka on ice drinks," the suit said.
The male passenger appeared visibly intoxicated, slurring his speech and continually attempting to get the teenager's attention the more he intoxicated he became, the lawsuit said. When the girl asked him to stop talking to her, the man became "aggressive" and yelled at her.
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They both told the man that the girl was a minor and still in high school, but he reached over and "began pulling and pushing" at the mother's arm, according to the suit. The mother spoke to a flight attendant, saying the passenger was "very drunk and was making both her and her 16-year-old daughter feel unsafe by yelling, making obscene gestures and touching her daughter inappropriately."
Delta declined to comment on the litigation but a spokesperson told NBC News in a statement Sunday that the airline has "zero tolerance for customers who engage in inappropriate or unlawful behavior."
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