The 42-year-old editor, worried about a fast-approaching deadline, said she hoped her open laptop and the AirPods in her ears would discourage the chatty passenger next to her. When her plan failed, Stelter said, she “gave up” on work and made small talk with the man during their two-hour flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago.
Heading home after a guided food-tour excursion in Mexico with her girlfriends, Gretchen Stelter settled into her window seat in business class on American Airlines and began editing a book manuscript for her new job.
ut according to Stelter’s pending lawsuit, American Airlines employees failed to protect her from what happened next: Her seatmate, who ordered two double vodka sodas, became “uncontrollably drunk and loudly sexually harassed” her. He also grabbed her buttocks as she moved to exchange seats with a sympathetic passenger, the complaint alleges. Read More