A woman is suing United Airlines for $5 million for what seems to be a pretty crazy reason.
Cary M. David of New Jersey paid $7.99 to use DIRECTV during a four-hour flight to Puerto Rico. However, it turns out that she only got to use the service for 10 minutes because it only works when flying over the continental U.S.
The lawsuit states that United offered DIRECTV and WiFi for a fee, while knowing that the services would only work when flying over the continental U.S.
The airline failed to inform passengers of these limitations but still continued to sell the two services. Those that purchased DIRECTV and/ or WiFi only learned of these issues when “they have crossed U.S. borders or are over water, with no service” according to Gothamist.
So why the need to sue for such a ridiculous amount?
It’s a class-action lawsuit and since United sells DIRECTV and WiFi for prices ranging from $4.99 to $49, according to Gothamist “Plaintiff reasonably estimates that there are thousands of Class members who purchased the services complained of herein, and at least hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the Sub-Class who purchased the same services.”
It does seem that United is at fault here for not sharing these crucial pieces of info regarding DIRECT and WiFi (working on international flights).
If the airline knew that the services would only work for a few minutes, why even bother to offer them to passengers? Seems like a bit of a tease to me.
Find out more from Gothamist here.
Augias- That’s correct. My guess is that some sort of deal would be agreed upon for those that joined the class-action suit. They’d each get a cut as a settlement for purchasing DIRECTV or WiFi during a specific timeframe.
if it’s a class action lawsuit, she wouldn’t keep all 5 million, would she? It would be distributed among other members who were also tricked into buying DirecTV when flying out of the country?