[hobbler]

During my flight on the 18th of January (Doha/Bangkok) I (male) was repeatedly touched inappropriately, on my leg, by the passenger (male) sitting next to me.

My initial seat had been different, but a couple wished to sit together and asked me to exchange seats. I changed seats with the gentleman, then fell asleep prior to take off. When I woke up, the man next to me had his hand on my upper thigh. I angrily asked him to please remove his hand, which he did. The man was not sleeping, so this was not accidental. Especially not after the 4th or 5th time.

I complained to the air hostess for my section, who referred me to another woman who said she was the senior cabin crew for the economy section. She was unable to move me to another location as the flight was full and asked me to please remain calm. She informed that she had written a report of the incident and I would hear back eventually from the appropriate department.

Every time I fell asleep the same thing would occur, making it impossible to relax at all during a very long flight. I was very disgusted by the entire situation but had zero options other than to deal with having my thigh touched.

When I contacted QA via the TellUs, the response was along the lines of:

We are sorry for any inconvenience that you may have experienced on this occasion.

Safety is paramount to us and will never be compromised under any circumstances. All our cabin crew members have been trained in the handling of passengers who are behaving inappropriately.

None of our cabin crew members had witnessed this incident. Cabin crew had immediately spoken to the other passenger and monitored the passenger.

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Multiple incidents were reported, but no action was taken by the cabin crew beyond the initial passenger warning and telling me that they could not move me. QA has offered no recompense for 5 hours of being terrified of falling asleep and being groped again. Nor are they even admitting that anything happened. All emails have basically said, "Can't prove it, didn't happen, sucks to be you. Fly us again!"

I've been flying QA for years and lost my Silver status this year by 10pts. If this is how they treat long term customers . . .

[jimworcs]

If they could not move you and warned the passenger and he continued, I am not sure what they could do. However, you should have taken action and asked that the police meet the flight, so you could make a complaint of sexual assault. You are the victim, the assailant is responsible for his actions. Why would you want compensation from an innocent party? Etihad didn't do anything wrong.

If you were in a park and the gentleman groped you on a park bench, would you ask for compensation from the park owner?