Originally Posted by
McRabbit
I am not related to Ms Sharma. I do not know her, have never met her, and had never heard of this forum until a colleague, knowing of my interest in what can be done to customers in monopoly or near-monopoly situations pointed it out to me. It is a matter which I have researched over a number of years.
Most commentators here do not understand what is involved in an interim injunction hearing. If damages are a sufficient remedy, you don't get an interim injunction. The Judge records what each side says but does not try to work out what the truth of the matter is. That comes later. Especially here there is a Fair Trading claim - as the conduct of a company is more relevant than what the fine print says.
The Judge states Ms Sharma filed sworn evidence that all passengers were in business class. She will have had to file copies of their tickets. An internal Air NZ report quoted by him says some were not; but the Air NZ letter telling her not to use the Koru lounge in Auckland does not claim that. If the Judge did not have business class tickets in front of him I would expect him to say so.
I thought this would be a place where I could learn more about what frequent flyers think of the "judge and jury" powers of airlines to ban people who dispute matters with them. That is not how it has turned out. What a disappointment.
I am clearly not welcome in this toxic environment. I congratulate Garykung for his well informed efforts to try to bring facts and understanding to this forum. I hope he keeps at it.
For my part, I do not intend to do so. This is my last posting.
You can talk about eligibility to the lounge all you want, but NZ's ban was on the grounds of safety.
Even if you were eligible to use the lounge but you had history of being abusive to the staff you are going to get banned. As stated in the judge's report AirNZ under the law has to provide its staff a safe working environment. Ms Sharma was making the workplace unsafe for the staff. She had to be banned or AirNZ could be on thee hook for Health and Safety violations. What options does AirNZ have to provide a safe work place without being able to ban abusive clients?
Being a monopoly does not protect it from it obligations to the law.