Delta Air Lines settled a lawsuit that alleged a flight attendant was fired in retaliation for supporting unionization and enduring “sexually assaultive touching” during training.
The flight attendant, Aryasp Nejat, said he was suspended without pay, then fired, for making two pro-union, anti-harassment posts on social media, and was told his sexual harassment allegation would be investigated, but that he never received a follow-up.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024, accused a Delta Air Lines flight attendant who performed uniform inspections on flight attendants during a graduation ceremony, Matthew Miller, of having “engaged in non-consensual, sexually assaultive touching of Nejat with Miller’s hands reaching inside Nejat’s pants close to his genitals and then moving to underneath Nejat’s vest and against Nejat’s chest”.
The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed sum. Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The settlement represents a step towards accountability and healing after a difficult period in my life, and I really hope that my experience helps highlight to the public, and to especially Delta flight attendants, the importance of having a union,” said Nejat, who works as a flight attendant for a different major airline. “I truly believe that Delta values its anti-union campaign over the legal rights of its flight attendants to organize a union and their legal right to make complaints of sexual harassment.”
Nejat said he planned to use the settlement to cover his law school costs.
Several labor unions including the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Teamsters are working to unionize 29,000 flight attendants at Delta, currently the largest single-unit organizing campaign in the US.
Delta has strongly opposed the move. The airline has a union representing pilots at the carrier and one representing dispatchers, but not for attendants – unlike other major airlines, where most workers are predominantly union represented.
“One of the reasons that flight attendant unions were originally formed were to root out sexual harassment, assault or sexual exploitation in order to try to get workers to do what you want them to do, to keep them quiet,” said Sara Nelson, president of the AFA-CWA. “These were the original reasons that we organized over 80 years ago, and we first negotiated a seniority list and a due process in that contract that ensured that something like this, at a minimum, that Aryasp wouldn’t have faced the retaliation for the union support but would have had a due process here.”
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson said: “Delta has consistently maintained his claims are without merit and settled to avoid the expense and distraction of litigation. Delta remains committed to ensuring all employees are treated in line with Delta policy and the law.”
