Woman sues Delta, says she was groped on flight

SEATTLE (AP) — A woman who says she was groped during an international flight, prompting her to launch a campaign to draw attention to such midflight assaults, sued Delta Air Lines on Tuesday over what she described as its anemic response to her case.

Allison Dvaladze said she was sleeping on an overnight flight from Seattle to Amsterdam in April 2016 when a man sitting beside her repeatedly grabbed her crotch, even as she yelled for him to stop.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, she said she eventually escaped her seat and ran to the back of the plane to alert the flight crew.

The response, she said, was woeful: Though the crew members sounded sympathetic, Dvaladze said they merely told her that such incidents happen, with one suggesting she should “’let it roll off your back.’”

They allowed her to switch seats with another passenger for the duration of the flight, she said, but before landing asked her to return to her original seat. She refused.

The flight crew neither contacted law enforcement about the episode nor took steps to identify the passenger, the lawsuit said.

It’s unclear if the passenger sitting next to her was in his assigned seat. The lawsuit names him as a defendant under the alias John Doe, as her lawyers have so far been unable to learn his name.

Delta, based in Atlanta, declined to comment on pending litigation, spokesman Anthony Black said in an email. But the company told The Seattle Times for a story published in December : “We continue to be disheartened by the events Ms. Dvaladze’s described.”

“We take all accounts of sexual assault very seriously and conduct routine reviews of our processes,” it added.

Dvaladze works for a global health program based at the University of Washington and frequently travels.

She was in Panama and