If an airline loses your luggage, shouldn't it refund your baggage fee? That seems reasonable enough, so when American Airlines refuses to refund $25 fee after losing Danielle Covarrubias' bag, she decided to sue:
The class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of Covarrubias of Pierce County, Wash., is the first since American Airlines started to charge a fee for handling and transporting luggage in June 2008, according to industry experts. The airline was the first major carrier to impose such fees.
"It just goes to show you how enraged people are by the lack of common-sense regulation in the airline industry," said George Hobica, an aviation expert and creator of airfarewatchdog.com. "It doesn't make any sense at all that somebody should charge for a service and then screw up and not give you your money back."
What do you think? Is a lawsuit justified or are the lawyers just squeezing money out of a beleaguered industry?
Ray Sanchez of ABC News has the story: Link
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.
not a single one for a lawyer but instead an ad for SW airlines.
also, justified...
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.
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.
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.
A day in the life...The bigger the airport and the larger the airline the worse the problem. Go ahead and suggest that we should get some sort of compensation for the airlines inability to deliver the services promised. Imagine any other industry doing the same. Most states have lemon laws. Or imagine going to your favorite restaurant, ordering a 15 ounce rib-eye and being given a 8 ounce hamburger and being told the delivery truck has not arrived yet. Or being told that the chef who cooks the rib-eye is on break.
Ridiculous.
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 the airlines were smart, they'd be more than happy to refund the charge. Giving back a 25 buck fee is a much better financial decision than suffering the bad publicity and potential loss of customers from keeping it.
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.