Southwest Passenger Uses Donald Trump as Excuse For Groping Woman Inflight

On Friday I wrote about the man who overdosed on heroin, claims to have spoken to God, and then groped a woman on a Southwest Airlines flight. The Los Angeles – Dallas flight wound up diverting to Albuquerque.

[H]e proceeded to lean “closer to her and put his arm over her armrest and onto her leg” and then “play footsie.”

He also “kept pulling on her sweater, asking her to go out after the flight and if she was staying alone in her hotel room.”

She changed seats with the help of a flight attendant. He “tried going over to [her] with a drink.”

At the time I suggested that Southwest’s seating policy might make these incidents more likely, although I haven’t ever seen data that suggests it. Other airlines pre-assign seats, so whom you sit next to is mostly chance. On Southwest it’s open seating, so creeps can pick out their victims.

Of course two data points makes a trend, right? On Sunday’s Southwest Airlines flight WN5421 from Houston to Albuquerque a man was arrested on arrival after being “accused of touching a woman’s breast while he was sitting behind her” on the flight.

The woman said she felt Alexander’s hand move from behind her and grab her right breast. She said she fell asleep about 20 minutes into the flight and not long after, she felt him touch her but assumed it was an accident, according to court documents.

About 30 minutes later, she said she felt Alexander’s hand grab the back of her arm and grope around her ribs and then her breast.

The man says he doesn’t remember doing this, that he was asleep most of the flight, however when he was arrested he also explained “the president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.”

If airlines can deflect blame, why not passengers? Two years ago United blamed a 15 year old girl’s groping on the short shorts she wore.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Thank you Donald Trump for setting such a great example for people especially our kids. They can now use you as an example why it’s OK to sexually assault people and not pay income tax as well as lie about every thing that comes out of their mouth. You’ve made us all proud again..

  2. Yeah, I tried explaining that I could coerce my interns into performing oral sex on me because Bill Clinton did it. Didn’t go over so well.

  3. One of the things I usually enjoy about travel blogs is I like to get away from all the political insanity going on. I’m sure I’m not alone on this. Gary, you’re only alienating a big chunk of your readers and potential readers with this unnecessary political commentary. If you want as many followers/readers as possible, you should really try and exercise some self control and keep your thinly-veiled anti-Trump stance to yourself. Or get yourself a political blog and vent all you want. Or feel free to slip it in a travel blog and alienate away, after all, it’s your blog. 😉

  4. Grab em by the *****
    But only if your famous unfortunately he wasn’t famous so he couldn’t get away with it

  5. Anyone who defends Donald Trump at this point is either in serious denial or has serious problems.

  6. I am anti-Trump, all you Trumpanzees, but “De-wonderment” was right. Trump’s caveat included “famous” as necessary. Joy

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