Delta Air Lines is making news in Seattle, after four former Delta airport customer service employees were fired. The reason is that the employees believed they were fired for reporting sexual harassment.

Delta Seattle Agents Fired After Reporting Sexual Harassment, Claiming Unauthorized Upgrades

View from the Wing explains Delta is claiming that these agents were giving unauthorized upgrades on oversold flights, which is what lead to the termination. However this contradicts what we’ve been told by Delta in a similar situation.

Delta has responded in the past with the following regarding upgrades:

To be as transparent as possible, there could be a few reasons why that may have happened. It looks as though this flight was possibly overbooked. Complimentary upgrades usually take place a few minutes prior til boarding and sometimes towards the end of boarding based on availability. If the flight is overbooked, the gate agent has the authority to assign any seat to a confirmed passenger regardless of the class of fare.

This has been true on several occasions, and Delta has confirmed the following, so trying to fire employees for “unauthorized” upgrades seems like an excuse they’re using to try to cover up what really may have happened.

Per Fox News,

Four former Delta employees are suing the airline for allegedly firing them for speaking Korean and reporting sexual harassment in the workplace, claiming “race and national origin discrimination and retaliation.â€

Ji-Won Kim, Lilian Park, Jean Yi and Jongjin An have a combined 50 years’ experience working as desk and gate agents for the airline out of Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle.

All four women were born in Korea and dealt with passengers flying to and from South Korea on a regular basis.

The women also believe their termination came as retaliation for complaints they filed against another Delta employee for sexual harassment.

The women were reportedly harassed multiple times by the same person while on the job. Yi told KIRO 7 she tried to “avoid touching†from the harasser “so when he came to the gate, I just moved out of sight. I didn’t want to deal with him touching, whispering.â€

“It was a daily thing,†Park said. She and Kim both reported the employee’s inappropriate behavior to their supervisor, but they say nothing was ever done.

“That agent is still working there and the touching has not stopped,†Jennifer Song, the women’s attorney, told KIRO 7. “We also suspect that their termination is related to the reporting of sexual harassment.â€