I know that these days it seems as if I’m at war with American Airlines but the truth is, they just keep running into walls.

ABC News has THIS story about a woman named Danielle Covarrubias who became pretty angry at American Airlines losing her bag.  However, when they also refused to refund her bag fee, she decided to sue American Airlines for $5 million.  The class action lawsuit was filed in Washington state, where Ms. Covarrubias lives.

But after a few days, it’s come to light that, according to American, Ms. Covarrubias wasn’t on the AA flight.  It was cancelled and she was re-booked onto another airline which lost her bag.  That was from Grand Rapids to Chicago.  No one disputes the bag was lost but it appears it was returned to her the following day.

AA says that they do allow a refund claim in these events as a part of a lost bag claim and it is unclear if Ms. Covarrubias filed such a claim.  Regardless, it points up what I’ve been saying for more than a year.  If you’re going to charge a bag fee, be prepared to deliver or refund that fee when you don’t deliver it on time or at all. 

Travelers are enraged and there is enough traction for a class action lawsuit such as this.  Even if this one doesn’t end up in court, I do believe there will be another that does.  When it does, the issue will be over whether or not an airline is entering into a contract to carry that bag with guarantees and I don’t think their fine print will save them.  There is plenty of law to show that there is an implied contract and that breaking the contract means you owe a refund of some sort.

Revenue from ancillary fees such as this looks great to airlines but they haven’t yet really felt the pain of what those fees imply.  To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that it has taken this long to see something like this. 

More important, it’s another case of airlines shooting themselves in the foot.  This problem was easy to solve and even easier to avoid.  Give a refund instantly when you lose or misplace a bag for which a customer has paid a fee. 

That much is a no-brainer.  It isn’t hard to empower an employee to do so.  You only have to ask 2 questions to arrive at an appropriate action:  1) Did the customer pay a checked bag fee and actually check a bag?  2) Did the bag arrive with the customer?   If the answers are Yes and No respectively, make that refund immediately.  Credit it back in exactly the same manner for which it was paid and do it instantly and with sincere regrets over the trouble caused. 

Denying that refund automatically is not only a bad PR strategy, it’s just simply wrong.  In this country, we do not expect people to pay for things they didn’t get.  Airlines are styling these fees as “services” and, in this case, service is exactly what the customer didn’t receive.

Filed under: Airline Fees, Airline News, Airline Service by ajax