A Georgia family is suing Delta Air Lines for millions of dollars after a father, Mohammad Shibli, claimed a flight attendant slapped him in front of his wife and two children.
During a news conference on August 26, Shibli and his legal team presented a list of legal demands against the Atlanta-based airline, one of which included receiving one full day’s profit from Delta for Shibli and his family, per 11 Alive.
According to Shibli, the incident occurred while he was traveling with his wife and two sons, 4 and 2 years old, from Atlanta to Fresno, California, on July 29.
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According to him, his wife sat in a different row with their 2-year-old, while he sat with his 4-year-old. Shibli stated that the plane was delayed before takeoff, and their 2-year-old boy started crying for water.
The accused Delta flight attendant, according to Shibli, refused to serve his wife even though she was adjacent to the galleys where water was stored after the plane took off and the flight attendants went through the cabin.
According to Shibli, he then got up and went to the back of the plane to request water from the same flight attendant, but he was turned away once more. He said the attendant spoke in a “very disrespectful tone.”
When he approached the front of the plane to request water, he claimed the other flight attendants gladly gave it to him and apologized for the other flight attendant’s actions.
But later in the flight, Shibli stated that things became even more heated. As the flight attendants returned down the aisles, he explained that the flight attendant who had refused his family water had inquired if they wanted anything to drink. Shibli stated that he made it plain that he wanted nothing from her and demanded her to leave him alone.
“She then asked if I wanted the police to meet me at the gate, insinuating that she was going to have me arrested. I asked her, ‘For what?’ She just ignored me and continued her service,” Shibli said. “As she walked back and forth to serve other passengers, she bumped into me with her body. I tried to ignore it, but the passenger in my row, whom I had never met before, could tell that the Delta attendant was provoking me.”
Shibli claimed the flight attendant moved near to his ear and “whispered a very vulgar word.” Shibli said he was “shocked” and couldn’t believe a flight attendant would use “such a disgusting word to him.”
The father said that he stood up and yelled a couple of foul words to the flight attendant after feeling verbally insulted in front of his child.
“It was at that time the Delta attendant took a few steps towards me and struck me with an open palm as hard as she could,” Shibli said. “I was pleading to other flight attendants that I was just assaulted.”
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According to him, the accused flight attendant carried on serving customers like nothing had occurred. He claimed that many flight attendants approached the woman and instructed her to spend the rest of the four-hour journey in the back.
“It was painful and embarrassing. As a father, I looked helpless in front of my son. As a husband, I was humiliated. And as a passenger, I feared for the safety and security for myself and for my family,” Shibli said at the news conference on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a Delta representative said the company initiated an internal investigation as soon as the incident was reported. The airline also announced that the flight attendant had been suspended while the investigation was ongoing.
But according to Shibli’s lawyers, the flight attendant’s suspension is nothing, adding that Delta has 30 days to address their legal demands.
“Delta ruined my client’s day, and Delta, we demand a day of your profits,” Ali Awad, the founder of personal injury firm CEO Law Firm, said.
Awad suspects Shibli’s wife’s top, which read “Palestine,” may have contributed to the tensions aboard the plane. He hopes Delta’s culture will change as a result of their list of legal demands.
Another demand Awad made in the lawsuit against the airline was that “Every Delta employee in the company must get education and sensitivity training on Palestine.”
Awad also accused Delta of negligent hiring, citing numerous cases of employee legal trouble last year, which included a Delta pilot arrested in the cockpit in San Francisco on July 28, the day before Shibli’s alleged incident, on charges related to child sexual abuse material.
