Airlines Sued Over Baggage Fee

this lawsuit is justified. common sense FTW.

Funny how corporations that DON’T ABUSE THEIR CUSTOMERS seem to have no problems with lawsuits of any sort.

Really Alex, are you buying the rich elite’s propaganda that lawyers are bad for the people when the people have nothing but the right to sue left.

I haven’t ONCE EVER seen a cop arrest a white collar criminal. The courts are our only hope to defend our rights and as an American you should know that.

If they feel the need to charge people for extra luggage, they are taking on a responsibility to make sure it gets where it is supposed to.

nimrod: the whole post was listed in the form of a question to encourage debate, so i honestly don’t understand what you’re going off about.

also, justified…

Almost the exact same thing just happened to my gf’s sister two days ago. She flew to Seattle and the airlines not only lost her bag, but charged her another $25 bucks to deliver it.

Airline service in this country are insanely awful. I hope this lawsuit kicks AA’s ass and make them refund not only her but everyone they lost a bag to.

Airlines are raising costs at the wrong places.
They already get a cut of the concessions including restaurants,kiosks,bars and newsstands. Let’s not forget that the terminal charges for the parking slots and a per landing charge which keeps going up . With some balance between the income from the concessions and the cost of landings/parking slots including costs for late departure being equal an adjustment in air fare should only be based upon the cost of fuel,labor and a flat fee for aircraft replacementand profit. Federal taxes are already included in each ticket. With all this considered additional charges are gouging the public.

for once a lawsuit that makes sense, so long as theyre not asking for a million bucks

I think this is a justifiable lawsuit. Troubled though it may be, the airline industry has really forgotten the people that butter its bread. Flying is no longer a fun part of the vacation so much as it’s a necessary evil in which you are forced to deal with some of the most appalling customer service at every level. And most of the time, there’s nothing you can do about it when they mess up. If they are going to charge you for the pleasure of having a change of clothes at your destination, then they need to start actually getting that baggage to where it’s going. It’s the least they can do. Hopefully, this lawsuit will wake some people up.

@Nimrod: Wow, I don’t even know where to start with your horribly uninformed post.

First, yes, corporations that don’t routinely screw their customers are less prone to lawsuits. That said, your matter-of-fact statement that said corporations have “no problems with lawsuits of any sort” is terribly uninformed. The very definition of a frivolous lawsuit is one brought without merit for the sake of harm or profit. This happens MORE to good companies than bad (use some logic) and is why tort reform is necessary. It isn’t “rich elite propaganda”. You’re spouting off propaganda commonly used by the very lawyers who are responsible for and profit hugely from frivolous lawsuits.

Second, in what seems to be a theme for you, you make yet another egregiously uninformed statement. The news (pick your source) is chock full of white collar criminals getting hefted away to jail. Do the names Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff, Robert Standford ring a bell? If not, local news is full of mortgage fraud, SSI fraud and bank fraud arrests all the time.

Perhaps you should do a little more reading and a little more typing before you start popping off and letting such silliness spill out that casts a less than favorable light upon you.

@Edward: You’re not too far off. There should be some standard in place to judge this. If an airline gets you to your destination outside of a reasonable window and it is THEIR fault (pilot not on time, administrative error, etc), then they should have to make some amends. Full refunds aren’t fair because you got where you were supposed to go. A % on a scale seems fair though. There is a problem with this though. What about instances where it isn’t their fault? Weather, mechanical problems (you don’t want to include this because they will just start taking more risk, which would lead to tragedy), traffic delays, etc. Those are outside their scope of control. Finally, keep in mind that if they do this, they will just start padding the ticket prices to cover that potential loss, so essentially, you’d be paying yourself and they make MORE profit when they don’t screw up.

@Ken S: You are also somewhat misinformed. Airlines do not get “cuts” of concessions/bars/etc or parking/terminal fees/etc. Airports are businesses. This is how they make money and manage the maintenance of airports. Airlines have to PAY to use an airport. I agree with you that the airlines are going about it wrong, but they’ve brought it upon themselves and we, the consumers, are paying for it. They aren’t going to risk profit (and nor should they, they are, after all, for profit businesses who have responsibilities to stockholders) to make things easier for us.

On the subject at hand, I believe this suit to be fully justified. She paid for a service, the service was not performed. Fee for said service should be refunded. I couldn’t believe that they had the balls to charge for checked bags as it is. If I were the attorney in this case, and I was more interested in justice than profit (let’s be honest, that isn’t most attorneys), I would determine how much revenue the airline has accrued with it’s checked-bag fees since they started, apply some reasonable math to that to work out an assumed average value for each of those checked-bags, and sue for exactly that much money, plus an extra five years worth. That way, if they lose, which they should, they lose any and all profits derived from that practice, and don’t stand to make a profit on it for another five years.

A caveat to this should be that the class-action should automatically include all passengers who have paid out said fee and when the lawsuit is won, all of those who paid out the fee are refunded (and not in the retarded form of a coupon as so many of these tend to be), anyone who’s luggage was lost gets theirs plus the avg’d cost of their bags, and the remainder is what the lawyer gets paid (lawyers tend to walk away with anywhere between 30-65% of the award…that is why the ACLU is NOT your friend).

And that concludes this volume.

Completely justified.

Totally justified.
I have to echo most sentiments already expressed. The American based airline system needs a total overhaul. To fly now, it feels like they are doing me a favor. They have forgotten that customers pay their wages.

I have often thought that Amtrak needs to use the very bad airline situation to their advantage and market taking the train over flying(and offer reasonable fares).

If I ran an airline, we’d come up with a modern, sophisticated, effective, system for making most of the bags arrive where and when they’re supposed to. I’m sure it could be done. Lots of other warehouses, shippers, and businesses move lots of freight from place to place very quickly and don’t have that much trouble with loss.
Then I’d advertise it like crazy. Even offer better than a refund on the baggage fee, some sort of really great consolation prize policy, like “If we lose your bag, your flight is free.”. Then potential customers would know how serious you are about the bags arriving. If you were worried about losing bags, you couldn’t afford to make such a generous offer on lost ones. The small percentage of unavoidable lost bags that you’d have to pay out on to honor the deal would be offset by the increase in business from having more customers and the good publicity from the customers you did have to pay out on sharing their positive experience with you keeping your word and letting them fly that trip for free.
I know if I were choosing from similar airlines and had to pick between one that was going to charge me for my bag whether it arrived as planned or not or one that was really extra confident that it would arrive and willing to let me fly free if it didn’t, it would be a quick and easy decision.