British Airways (BA) is paying a high price for bad luggage handling. The last time the airline had this much bad publicity was during its Terminal 5 meltdown. A class-action case in court will test the airline a bit more.
United States District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled a nationwide class action lawsuit could move forward in the United States court system. The British Airlines stance is that their liability according to the Treaty of Montreal is a total of $1,500 per passenger for lost luggage. The United States and 124 other countries are signatories to this agreement that limits airline liability.
However their is a kicker in the Montreal Treaty fine print. If the airline acted recklessly, and with knowledge that damage would probably result, the liability limitations are waived.
Judge Garaufis, ruled that BA’s handling of luggage was reckless enough to trigger the clause that will lift their liability. Lawyers representing passengers claimed, “This ruling affirms that the convention protects passengers from airlines that demonstrate they don’t care about passengers’ luggage.”
This is one of the first times that airlines have been held accountable in a class-action legal procedure for actual losses rather than only facing treaty limitations. In most cases, passengers meekly accept the airline’s offer of reimbursement or file individual small-claims court actions for remuneration.
An Association of European Airlines study in early 2008 found that BA’s lost luggage rate was 50 percent higher than the average European airline.
As long as the airlines were not subjected to the legal system, their approach of divide and conquer when faced with unhappy passengers separated unwillingly from their luggage seemed to work. This class-action suit may change the lay of the legal landscape.
Originally published on Tripso.com.
