Chloe King said she was left sleeping in her seat next to a masturbating man by American Airlines staff

A woman claims to have been left sleeping in her seat by American Airlines staff while the man next to her masturbated.

Chloe King, a New York-based PR & Social Media Manager for the upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman, described the horrifying experience in a post on Medium on July 9.

In the piece, the 30-year-old described how the man was sitting between her and another woman on the plane when they took off from New York at the end of May.

She fell asleep and the man, who was not identified, began masturbating, she said.

According to Ms King, airline staff moved the other woman in the row but left her asleep in the window seat, oblivious to the man's lewd behavior.

Shortly before landing, after she woke up, a flight attendant pulled her to the back of the plane to tell her about what had happened and to inform her that the man would be arrested at the airport in Paris.

Rather than allow her to sit elsewhere, the woman said she forced to return to their shared row and 'climb over' the man to return to the window seat until landing.

Ms King, a PR manager for Bergdorf Goodman, wrote about her experience online and encouraged others to read about it and boycott the airline

'The woman to his other side saw it happen and asked to be moved, and the French Police had been notified to arrest the man upon landing — they just wanted to let me know.

What they didn’t do was wake me up and move me to a safe place. What they didn’t do was accommodate my request — after informing me of the assault — to sit anywhere else on the plane for landing.

Ms King (pictured during the trip to Paris in June) said she would never fly AA again

'Instead, they made me climb back over the sex offender, trapped between him and the window for the rest of the flight. I was shaking and crying and trying not to get sick,' she wrote.

After landing, the woman said she approached American Airlines staff at the Paris airport but was met with blank stares.

When she contacted the airline's head office, she said she received nothing more than an email which acknowledged the 'disappointing service'.

'I’ll never know what exactly happened on that flight, but I do know I’ll never feel completely safe flying again. Add an American Airlines airplane to the long list of places where, as a woman, I will feel anxious and vulnerable,' she said.

'American Airlines, you knew what happened was criminal activity, — therefore you had the offender arrested — yet you did nothing to stop the man’s actions or protect my safety in a horrifying situation. You chose to treat the man committing the crime with far more respect than the unconscious woman sitting beside him. As humans, we deserve more than that. So please, choose any other airline.'

American Airlines said it contacted French police to meet the man off of the plane after it landed in Paris. The city's Charles de Gaulle airport is pictured

Eager for people to hear her story, she shared it on Facebook, writing alongside it: 'Friends, please read. I was the victim of a sexual crime on a recent American Airlines flight. Please choose any other airline.'

The airline did answer questions about what was done to stop the man's lewd behavior while the flight was in progress.

It has not revealed where he was from, if he was arrested on the ground or where the flight took off from originally.

In statement, a spokesman said only: 'American always strives to maintain a safe and comfortable travel experience for all of our customers. We are reviewing how we handled the situation on this flight, and have reached out directly to Ms. King.

'During the flight, our crew requested that French law enforcement meet the aircraft in Paris. Upon arrival, French officials interviewed the male passenger regarding the allegations.'