Frontier sued for in-flight sexual assault

(CN) – A Texas woman says Frontier Airlines failed to prevent her from being sexually assaulted on a 2024 red-eye flight and never investigated her complaint in a lawsuit filed Monday morning.

On an overnight flight from San Francisco to Dallas, Guadalupe Castaneda says she fell asleep and woke up to a strange man’s hand on her lap, caressing her inner thigh. Castaneda reported the incident to the flight crew and filed a complaint with Frontier.

In response, Frontier offered her a $75 voucher.

Castaneda says Frontier never investigated her complaint and has refused to identify the male passenger to her or law enforcement.

She is suit on a single count of negligencepursuing an unspecified amount of damages and punitive damages.

Working as a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines, Castaneda says she was in her uniform while traveling home after a transcontinental assignment. She says the male passenger, who sat in the middle seat while she sat in the window, rubbed his leg and hand against her leg several times before falling asleep in her seat.

Castaneda says Frontier did not implement any security or monitoring measures to prevent in-flight sexual assaults. She says the flight attendants on duty neglected their responsibility to walk around the cabin at least once every 60 minutes.

Additionally, she says Frontier should have taken extra precautions on red-eye flights with dark cabins, “despite industry knowledge that such conditions increase the risk of in-flight sexual assault.”

“Frontier Airlines’ actions and omissions enabled the male passenger to assault the plaintiff and demonstrate a disregard for her safety, welfare and rights,” she says in the complaint.

Frontier has been on notice of in-flight sexual assaults since at least 2019.

“Frontier Airlines claims to put safety first,” says Castaneda. “In reality, Frontier Airlines has repeatedly failed to take allegations of sexual assault seriously — especially when those allegations are made by women.”

In December 2019, two women led one class action in federal court in Denver — where Castaneda’s complaint is filed — accusing the airline of inadequately responding to reports of sexual assault on two separate Frontier flights.

Both women in that group say the flight crews refused to report the incidents to law enforcement or escalate the complaint within the company. Frontier declined to identify the perpetrators or potential witnesses, according to court documents.

That case is still ongoing.

Alone in 2021, a man pleaded guilty to abusive sexual contact after he fondled a teenage girl and masturbated in front of her on a Frontier flight.

Castaneda says the incidents together show a pattern of Frontier’s failure to monitor its cabins for the safety of its passengers.

In 2018, the FBI issued a public advisory noting a significant increase in the number of sexual assaults reported on airplanes in the previous four years. In response, the agency assigned agents to more than 450 US airports, including Denver Airport where Frontier is located and Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where Castaneda’s flight landed.

The advisory said victims are most often seated in the middle or window seat, where Castaneda was seated for her flight.

Castaneda is represented by Romanucci & Blandin LLC. In 2025, the firm filed two lawsuits against United Airlines and American Airlines, representing women who say they were sexually assaulted on red-eye flights. Both airlines support “zero tolerance” sexual harassment policies.

Frontier did not respond to a request for comment.