yourreturn

Yes, but it happens almost every day. It was known in advance. So on that leg I did not have an assigned seat. And I did arrive at the airport on time.

Does that allow them to sell tickets they don't honor?

I would determine damages based on the federal standards. 400% of a leg if you are more than I think 4 hours late to your destination. The federal law is designed so that airlines must make an effort to give people what they paid for. Half the ticket was $322. So at least, that amount 4x.

If it happens nearly every day in the summer, to a few passengers, the airline should not be selling those seats, or the seats should come with a warning. I would not have purchased the ticket if I knew this issue.

yourreturn

I did politely explain the problem.
They politely did not even read what I wrote, made up a bunch of B.S.
So I got angry.
It's okay to be angry when it is justified.

I sent a reply email to the generic AA address. And surprisingly the next day I got a phone call. I expected to be offer a fair amount, and instead got very rudely treated. I don't think that the airlines should be allowed to treat people like they are not important etc. and for them to take advantages of legal loopholes.

yourreturn

I think the trip in vain is a good idea.
Yes, I expected that I could be late. But to be late because American Airlines sold me something it had little or no intention to fulfill is where I take issue.

Madone59

It's because they don't care. There is so little competition on domestic routes, some of which are only served by one or two airlines, they know you will be back. For every person who says "I'll never fly AA/US again, what are Delta or United like?" there is a person who's saying "I hate DL or UA, I'm taking my business to US/AA." The airlines know next time they are $3 cheaper then the competition we'll be back. We always come back.

If you don't like the way you were treated, don't give them your business; that is the only solution. There will be no recompense.

yourreturn

How can I prevent a change of venue?
Any ideas?

thanks.

jordyn

Once again, I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are probably not helping your chances trying to come up with complicated legal theories about "trip in vain" (even though you decided to take the trip anyway) or that some pattern in weight-restriction means that AA shouldn't be selling the seat in the first place. If that's your theory, complain to the DOT that AA is engaging in a deceptive trade practice, because the Supreme Court recently decided that you can't even claim that AA isn't engaging in good faith and fair dealing in a lawsuit.

gpicur already gave you the best theory if you want to file a suit: AA didn't follow their own conditions of carriage by failing to solicit volunteers and therefore breached their contract with you. This claim can't be removed to federal court and isn't subject to preemption by the Airline Deregulation Act. On the downside, you can't claim consequential damages so your best case scenario is probably getting the money for your ticket back.

wetrat0

1. Lack of a seat assignment is a total red herring here. There are many reasons one might not have a seat assignment (most commonly, the only seats left are the ones saved for elites or disabled passengers, so the seat needs to be assigned at the gate. People arrive at the gate all the time without a seat assignment, and almost all of the time they end up on the flight. This has been discussed ad nauseum on various FlyerTalk forums (consider searching for "seat assignment"). You are advancing a conspiracy theory that lacking a seat assignment somehow means AA were conspiring in advance to deny you transportation, which is just simply not true.

2. Unfortunately, the idea that they didn't honor the ticket is also wrong. They did honor the ticket. They got you to your destination, on the same day even. Go read the contract of carriage. There is nothing in the ticket that guarantees you to arrive at a certain time or on a certain flight (or even on a certain airline-- they can decide to send you on another airline). The ticket only guarantees transportation from A to B, or a refund. As long as you show up at A and eventually end up at B, they have honored the ticket. This is just a fact of how air transportation tickets work in the USA. If you don't like it, you can complain to your representatives and ask them to pass EU261-type regulations.

I really think you have three options, which have basically been already summarized: (1) Ask CS nicely for more compensatio, and maybe get a bigger voucher, (2) Throw a junk lawsuit at AA and hope they settle, or (3) get better informed about the law and the contract of carriage. If you choose option 3, you will ultimately come to the conclusion that you don't have a case, which leaves you with options 1 or 2.

There is some disagreement in this thread as to whether 1 or 2 is more fruitful, but pretty much everyone here thinks you don't have any real legal case. Obviously, that is not what you want to hear, because you keep coming back and asking the same things, looking for someone to agree with you. If you stick around FT for a while, you will realize that a lot of the posters here have many years of experience travelling and have lots of good practical advice, and if you follow some of this advice it will save you a lot of frustration in your future travels!

wetrat0

This only applies to IDB due to an oversale, and there's an exemption for small planes and for weight/balance issues, so this damages formula is completely irrelevant (doubly so, since you were on a small plane and there is no evidence that there was an oversale).

Madone59

+1 to wetrat0's postings.

"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!" - Judge Smails

jordyn

I think you are missing the argument from those of us saying that they didn't "honor the ticket". The conditions of carriage that you refer to obligate AA to seek volunteers in oversold situations, even in situations where the customer is due no compensation as the result of being denied boarding. It sounds like they did not do that, so AA failed to live up to its obligations under the conditions of carriage. The fact that they did live up to some other parts of it doesn't change the fact that they didn't do this part.

Analogy time: I have a contract with you to paint your house. We had agree in advance that I would paint it white, but if I didn't have any white paint and I went to the hardware store and they were also out of white paint then I could paint it any color I had available instead. On the day I show up to paint your house, I'm out of white paint but have some green paint in my truck. I can't just paint your house green without first checking at the hardware store to see if there's some white paint available there, and if I do you could sue me for breaching the contract.

Exec_Plat

Ninja edit.

nevermind

bocastephen

This is not correct. People file suits in SCC against common carriers every day - and there are plenty of Flyertalkers across the different boards who have done just this - some won, some lost. The suit will be heard in SCC - whether the OP wins or not will depend on the applicable law which is the most important factor. If AA shows up in court and points out the federal regulation that absolves them from any corrective action due to the aircraft size and the reason for the bump, then the OP will likely lose the case.

Truthfully the OP should have claimed "trip in vain" and been returned to their point of origin and received a full refund of the ticket if they were going to miss the conference.

In practice, as noted upthread, if AA has to hire a local lawyer or spends money to fly someone from their legal dept to the location where the OP files the SCC suit, they will probably settle - or if the OP gets lucky and the paperwork is lost and they never answer the suit - get a default judgement they can serve for payment at the nearest AA facility.

Exec_Plat

If they sell more seats than they can accommodate, IS THAT AN OVERSALE????

Or ***MUST*** it be 'more seats sold that physically on the aircraft'?

This is an important distinction...of there are 40 seats, they sell 42 seats but due to overweight only can accommodate 35, how many are oversells, how many overweight? 2 oversells- for which they must ask for volunteers first, then 5 overweights- denied at their whim?

AA says:

AA fails to define 'seats available' any further.

If I was OP I'd argue "oversell=sell more than they can carry" Period. See if the court agrees, see if AA argues their point of view.

jordyn

I think "oversale" must mean "sell more than they can carry", otherwise the portion of the CoC below about weight and balance issues wouldn't make sense. (FWIW, the language in the CoC matches the statute on this, which is no more help and doesn't define "oversold" either, but also makes clear, I think, that the situation in which there are weight and balance issues are a subset of this condition rather than something separate from it.)

869

I don't have much to say about suing the AA, but this is a very interesting point that Exec_Plat and jordyn are discussing. Would be curious to see AA define its point of view on this one.

In their world, there could be many different denominators in the oversell equation. There's a certain number of seats physically present on a plane that is scheduled/marketed for any given flight, there's another number of seats on that plane that AA chooses to market/utilize as it manipulates its own cost structure in light of federal regulations for that flight, and then there is also the number of seats it can actually use on game day based on other extraneous factors as is the case here.

I'm sure AA would assert whichever position is in its best interest in the given scenario.