Alaska Airlines is investigating a disturbing sexual harassment complaint made by former Facebook executive Randi Zuckerberg following a flight from Los Angeles to Mazatlan, Mexico Wednesday.
Zuckerberg, who is the sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, wrote a letter to the airline's top executives detailing her harrowing experience aboard the three-hour flight, in which she claims a male passenger seated next to her made numerous sexually explicit and lewd comments to her and others.
"Both me and my colleague reported the incident to flight attendants who told me this was a frequent flier, brushed off his behavior as 'oh, he just doesn't have a filter,' kept feeding him more drinks, and suggested that I move to the back of the plane if I was uncomfortable," she wrote in a Facebook post.
In her letter to Alaska Airlines CEO Brad Tilden, Zuckerberg said the man talked about touching himself and asked her if she fantasized about her female colleague. She also said the passenger rated and commented on other women's bodies as they boarded the plane.
She said the man consumed multiple alcoholic beverages and had three drinks on his tray table at one point in the flight.
Zuckerberg expressed outrage that the flight attendants downplayed the man's behavior and that he was even allowed to fly in the first place given his history. She also pointed the finger at herself for not "causing more of a scene."
According to an update on social media, she has since spoken with two Alaska Airlines executives who confirmed the incident is being investigated. In the meantime, the accused passenger's travel privileges have been temporarily suspended.
Alaska Airlines vice president of people, Andrea Schneider told the Seattle Times that the investigation will include interviews with crew members and passengers seated nearby. She described Zuckerberg's account as "disturbing" but said the carrier's flight attendants "by and large do an amazing job addressing a myriad of situations in a really, really professional and competent way."
"We are going to be listening and learning, and do everything we possibly can to ensure everyone feels safe and comfortable on our planes."
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Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union, told the Times the incident points to a larger issue that must be addressed through better training for flight crew.
"For too long unacceptable sexual innuendo, harassment advances, and assault have been a silent epidemic in our society and certainly on our planes," said Nelson. "The industry and regulators need to come together to develop policies and tools to respond to these incidents on board. And industry leaders need to speak out clearly with a zero-tolerance policy."
In October, a man was fined $5,000 after pleading guilty to fondling a sleeping woman on a 2016 flight from Las Vegas to Pittsburgh. United Airlines came under fire earlier this year for failing to report a similar incident in which a teenager flying alone awoke to find another passenger groping her mid-flight.
In another distressing report, a woman claimed she was forced to remain seated next to a man caught masturbating while she slept on a flight from New York to Paris.
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