It’s not unusual for passengers to sue airlines for the actions of their flight attendants but it’s a lot less common to see flight attendants bring their own lawsuits against a passenger over alleged unruly behavior onboard a flight.
And yet that’s precisely what one Frontier Airlines flight attendant is doing in a new legal action being brought in a Nevada district court.
The flight attendant is seeking a minimum of $75,000 in damages from a passenger who was billigerent and slapped her hand during an altercation aboard a Frontier Airlines flight from Portland to Las Vegas on April 18, 2023.
According to a recently filed complaint, the incident started when a coworker called the flight attendant to help with a billigerent passenger in an attempt to “quell the situation.”
Rather than helping to calm frayed tempers, however, the involvement of the second flight only managed to escalate the situation further.
When the flight attendant asked what the passenger needed help with, it is alleged that she used profanities while telling the crew member that her tray table on the ultra-low-cost carrier was dirty.
The flight attendant went to hand her some napkins but the passenger slapped the crew member’s hand “really hard” and swore at her as she refused the napkins. The alleged assault ended up with the police being called and an FBI investigation ensued.
The passenger was later made to pay $530 in fines and fees after she was charged with assault by striking or beating.
The culmination of the criminal case against the passenger is not, however, the end of the matter. The flight attendant is now accusing the passenger of assault and battery in a civil case.
The case is seeking at least $750,000 in damages to cover medical bills, as well as general damages for “pain, suffering, mental distress, anguish and fear.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also has the power to levy its own civil penalties against unruly passengers with fines of up to $37,000 per violation of federal air safety rules.
Since 2023, two years into a massive FAA offensive to clamp down on unruly behavior, the agency has fined bad-behaving passengers a total of $7.5 million.
The ability to levy huge fines against passengers for their first offense was introduced in early 2021 as the FAA tried to get on top of a worrying spike in disruptive behavior aboard flights.
At the peak of the problem, the FAA received 720 reports of unruly passengers in a single month, March 2021. In March 2025, that number that dropped to just 160 reports despite a big increase in the number of passengers carried on US airlines.
I am 73 and a retired federal law enforcement official who used to travel on aircraft every week of my career. I continued to travel monthly as a retiree since I retired at maximum retirement age of 57. I have seen quite a lot on planes over the years. Just because a person is on a plane does not give them the right to act any differently than if they were on the ground. You cannot attack any employee of a ground based store nor should you be able to touch or attack flight crew. This is a short article that does not give us all the specifics, none the less, the flight attendant is within their rights to sue the passenger in civil court. Whether or not they will get any type of substantial award is up in the air. But, attorneys work for on CONTINGENCY and any agreement or judgement for the flight attendant will net them at least 33% of the award. The attorney likely ran a check on the woman who committed the assault and found that she had assets. This case will be a big headache and stress for the passenger for certain.
Is the flight attendant seeking $75,000 or $750,000? Both figures are used in this article.
If the prior fine resulted from a criminal action, it makes the civil suit far easier to win, as the burden of proof in a civil case is much lower than a criminal one. It should practically be a sure win for the attendant.
Regardless of the amount of money. Sue the brains (and wallet) out of the jerk. Take the house, the car, the dog, the first born, garnish the salary and everything you can if you win. If more airline employees had the tenacity to sue like this flight attendant….there’s a good chance that others might think twice. If the aircraft is diverted because of any misbehavior, the airline should sue the brains out of the perp that caused it. You can’t get blood from a turnip but you can sure make it impossible for the transgressor to do it again. NO SYMPATHY for these people.