0 min left

Spirit Airlines Sued by Battered Passengers

spirit airlines change fee waiver cancellation coronavirus refund

Passengers involved in a brawl on a Spirit Airlines flight recently sued the company for endangerment.

Three women sued Spirit Airlines on Thursday after being involved in a physical altercation at the end of a flight on March 9. Tykisha Diodato, Lisa Zampella, and Danielle Fonda-Thomas were on a flight from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The women allege that during the flight, two other women seated together were playing loud music, singing and dancing in the aisle while drinking to the point of rowdy intoxication. According to the plaintiffs, the women were asked to turn the music down, but instead, they turned it louder. The plaintiffs allege that a flight attendant joined their party, dancing and singing and continuing to serve the group alcohol after they were already clearly drunk. Once the plane landed in Los Angeles, the plaintiffs say that the drunken women began shouting racist remarks and attacked Fonda-Thomas when she asked them to watch their language in front of the children on the plane. All of the women joined in the fight.

According to the plaintiffs, Spirit did nothing to control the situation and made it worse by continuing to serve the drunken women alcohol.

“I am upset that the Spirit Airlines failed to protect us, disregarded our safety, and instead continued to serve the women in front of us alcoholic beverages even though they were clearly intoxicated and behaving aggressively,” Diodato said in a statement Thursday, reported by the New York Daily News.

Spirit has denied the charges.

“The flight had just landed at LAX and the flight attendants were in their jump seats as required by law,” airline spokesman Paul Berry said, according to the New York Daily News. “When the fight began, our flight attendants immediately moved to break it up. It is not our practice to over-serve alcohol to anyone.”

[Photo: Spirit Airlines]

Comments are Closed.
2 Comments
W
weero April 12, 2016

This sounds like the most ridiculous account ever. For a US carrier that is ... it is pretty much verbatim what I have experienced myself on KLM ...

A
amanuensis April 8, 2016

Actually, at least in the portion of Sprit's statement quoted in the final paragraph, Spirit does not deny the charges. Saying "it is not our practice to over-serve" is not the same thing as saying no over-serving occurred on that particular flight.