REPOST: EXCLUSIVE: Is American Airlines Probing Decades of Alleged Rapes and Assaults by Its Employees?

‘He said he was gonna rape himself a flight attendant:’ Reports of assault by male flight crew date back to the 1970s

*EDITOR’S NOTE: This was the first investigative piece I wrote after dozens of victims contacted me, originally posted 3/17/22. I’m posting part of it here to ensure Substack becomes a complete record of this ongoing story. The full article is available here, on my Medium page. The comments under that story offer a vital piece of the story*

Part I of an occasional series. TW: Descriptions of sexual assault.

American Airlines is gathering information involving historical reports of harassment, rape, sexual assault, bullying and/or retaliation by employees including male pilots, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation say.

The scope of the investigation around past alleged victims and what its goals are remain unconfirmed. American did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Current and past American Airlines employees who say they were assaulted by their own co-workers claim their experiences were an open secret in some corners.

Dozens of victims — most of them female flight attendants reporting assaults by male pilots — have been knocking on doors for years seeking to be heard, recognized, believed and supported.

Victims I spoke to who reported their attacks to American over the past decades say the company didn’t support them, that alleged assailants were protected and continued to fly and even be promoted in some cases, and that the administration used intimidation and scare tactics to silence the victims.

Many of them have wondered aloud why the #MeToo train passed by the Fort Worth, Texas station.

Until now.

Read more on Medium.