Drunk, Vaping Delta Air Passenger Punches Female Seatmate in the Face Without Warning And All Airline Offered Victim Was $40 Worth of Points

A Delta Air Lines passenger claims she was punched in the face without warning by a drunk seatmate who had already been caught vaping and touching other passengers inappropriately during a recent flight from Detroit to Los Angeles.

In response to the incident, Delta offered the victim just 4,000 SkyMiles frequent flyer points as a “gesture of goodwill,” saying that they don’t normally get involved in passenger conflicts.

The victim estimates that the value of Delta’s goodwill gesture amounts to a measly $40 and says the airline should have offered more, given the fact that it had allegedly known that the perpetrator “was trouble” before he even boarded the airplane.

“I was flying from Detroit to Los Angeles on flight DL0908 and about an hour into the flight, I was punched in the eye by another passenger,” the passenger explained in a post on the popular social media site Reddit.

The startled victim continued: “At first, I didn’t even realize what was going on (I was watching a movie with noise-canceling headphones), but the flight attendant saw it happen.”

“Apparently, this guy had been vaping, touching other passengers inappropriately, was extremely inebriated, and overall causing a major disturbance all over the plane,” the post continued. “The whole situation was chaotic, and I ended up with eye soreness and overall being extremely rattled and shaking for the rest of the flight.”

The perpetrator was apparently being escorted by flight attendants to the back of the plane in order to be detained when he suddenly lashed out at the victim. Another passenger ended up sitting with the perpetrator for the rest of the flight to prevent any further antics.

The victim ended up making a statement to police after the plane landed in Los Angeles, although she says that she felt like the flight attendants were trying to talk her out of pressing charges – “probably to avoid the paperwork.”

“To make things worse, when I deplaned, the Delta agent I spoke to wasn’t even sympathetic,” the post continued. “They told me they were aware this guy had caused trouble before the flight and that he probably should never have been allowed to board in the first place. Yet, somehow, Delta still let him on the plane.”

Although the victim regularly flies with Delta and normally loves the Atlanta-based carrier, she says the whole incident has “left a bad taste in my mouth” – especially after the airline’s lacklustre of compensation.

The incident certainly raises an interesting question about how much responsibility airlines should bear over the behavior of passengers and whether they should be offering generous compensation packages to customers who end up being assaulted on their flights.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, airlines generally resist calls to offer full refunds or big cash payouts to victims assaulted by seatmates, but there may be a cause for legal action if, as the victim in this case alleges, Delta knew the passenger was trouble before they boarded and allowed them to fly anyway.

Delta Air Line was not immediately able to verify the claims made by this passenger and did not provide a statement prior to publication.