On January 6th, 2021, Alaina Trocano joined hundreds of thousands of peaceful Americans to hear President Donald Trump in Washington, DC and exercise her First Amendment rights.
“When I saw that it was a protest and not a rally and I saw the protest permit I thought I would be protected by the first amendment,” Alaina shared.
“I thought the First Amendment was supposed to be without fear of retaliation.”
On January 7, Alaina made her way back to the airport to catch a flight home and shared a few clips of the day on social media. She shared a video being underneath the big flag during the speech, a video of everyone singing the national anthem then a video back at her hotel room letting people know she was okay.
At the time, Alaina, a flight attendant, was furloughed from American Airlines due to the pandemic and was preparing to return to her job in the coming weeks. About 8,000 flight attendants had to get refingerprinted for a new background check in order to return from furlough, Alaina included. Yet, everything still continued.
Although she did not step inside the Capital that day, Alaina was attacked by fellow flight attendants on social media in what would become a multi-year ordeal that ultimately led to a lawsuit against one of the alleged ring-leaders of the abuse she faced, as well as against American Airlines.
On January 7, 2021, Alaina’s phone buzzed in the Uber taking her to Reagan National with a disturbing text. The text read, “They’re after you again. They’re trying to get you on the no-fly list so you can’t leave the city. Let me know when you are through security.”
Alaina shares, “It was like I was in a movie. I was hearing words like ‘traitor’ and ‘domestic terrorist’ for the first time and didn’t understand.”
The “again” refers to Sept 2020 just before furlough when her airline announced that they would be allowing flight attendants to wear BLM pins on their uniforms. Crews didn’t understand why the public was boycotting the airline or why the public would think it’s political. She merely pointed out how to find BLM’s financial report and that’s when the harassment started.
By the time she got home from DC after January 6, a post appeared in a large Facebook group for flight attendants, with over 12,000 members, calling for her to be put on the no-fly list for attending the rally. The post included a petition to get her “fired and prosecuted” for her “treason.”
The post, by another flight attendant, was a picture of Alaina and said, “Alaina Trojan is the you?” The post garnered 500 comments in an hour.
Her home address was shared, her phone number was shared, and in the following days, weeks and months, she was inundated with threatening calls. Details of her personal life were leaked in the group, including her real estate license as well as details about her work at the airlines including her recall status, her base and her work trips, putting her in jeopardy.
“What was next? Posting my hotels? My room number?” She asks.
** YOU CAN HELP ALAINA HERE
As the weeks wore on, and though at least 50 flight attendants were involved, one person in particular attacked Alaina relentlessly online. When faced with a cease and desist one of the apparent “ring leaders,” doubled down and the attacks became more aggressive.
In June 2021, Alaina personally requested that the alleged petition creator take the petition down. She was then turned in for retaliation and had to endure another meeting in August 2021. Alaina knew she had to do something.
The aggressor publicly announced that he took the cease and desist to HR for harassment and then doubled down again last month after his response was due after being served.
In February 2021, an “anonymous” tip was called into the FBI who cleared her within minutes. She was told, “While the tip was anonymous, it was made by a group of flight attendants.”
Alaina said at that point, “I thought everything was going to stop then.”
And though she was cleared by the FBI, American Airlines continued to interrogate HER. And, while they did investigate the harassing flight attendants, they were only reprimanded with a slap on the wrist.
Alaina asks, “Why have policies if they’re not going to be enforced? Or are they just enforced on me?”
She spent more than 15 hours in meetings, forced to retrace every moment of her day, and they attempted to force her to trace her steps in detail in marker on a map of DC, something she declined to do.
In 2022, Alaina also took a brave and public stance against the vaccine requirement on public transportation. She is one of nine flight attendants that filed a lawsuit against the CDC in 2022 over the federal mask mandate on public transportation, arguing that being forced to wear masks and to enforce the mandate for passengers poses a risk to their own health and safety and hinders their ability to do their jobs.
Ultimately, Alaina was harassed about J6, the vaccine mandate, the mask mandate and meeting after meeting until she mentally collapsed and was diagnosed with PTSD and shares, “Looking back honestly, I can’t believe I made it that long.”
Yet to this day, the online harassment continues, even in groups meant to discuss work-related topics. In a Facebook group discussion about commuting (for flight attendants who do not live in their base city and must navigate the intricacies of getting to their base city for flights) someone posted, “Well I guess sympathizing with a seditionist poses a problem,” and then shared a video with the petition that broadcast her full name, the city she used to live in and other identifying information to the 11k+ members of the group.
“I don’t even know who he was referring to or what he was talking about,” Alaina said.
The continued harassment, and the airline’s unwillingness to address it, has continued to wreak havoc on Alaina’s life. She does not even personally know the flight attendants attacking her. She has never flown with them.
Now, after more than two years of harassment, and begging both the perpetrators to stop and the airline to step in, Alaina has filed a lawsuit against one of the flight attendants who she alleges created and circulated the petition, as well as against American Airlines.
In her lawsuit, Trocano v. Vivaldi et al she is suing for:
- Defamation
- Defamation per se
- Negligent Supervision
- Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
- Racial Discrimination
- Religious Discrimination
- Retaliation
Alaina shares, “When I became a paramedic I took an oath to ‘do no harm’ and I have been an advocate for others ever since. It’s time to be an advocate for myself.”
“When is my safety a priority? When it goes from online to on a flight? On a layover? When something bad happens to me? When it’s too late? How dangerous are they going to let it get?”
Paul Davis, Alaina’s lawyer, says this about the case, “As a long-time employment lawyer and former HR director, its clear to me that AA did not fairly or evenly apply their own policies to Ms. Trocano. When you see this type of treatment after an employee takes a public stand for her religious rights in the workplace related to mandatory vaccination, it smacks of retaliation. Also, in this situation there was a black AA flight attendant who attended January 6 who was not subjected to the same type of harassing behavior and hostile work environment. That’s a prima facie case for racial discrimination. AA should be held accountable for its extreme and outrageous treatment of Ms. Trocano.”