American Airlines has agreed to pay a minimum of $7.5 million to customers who were inappropriately charged bag fees between February of 2017 and April of 2020 as a potential settlement in the preliminary approval of a putative class action lawsuit against the airline for allegedly charging customers excessive baggage fees and therefore being in breach of the contracts of the parties…
Get Your Share of Money From American Airlines Baggage Fee Class Action Settlement?
…and no limit has been set at this time to the amount of damages which American Airlines will pay — which means that the airline will reimburse all eligible customers who were charged a baggage fee during the aforementioned range of dates.
Civil action number 4:21-cv-00184-O is currently being litigated in Fort Worth at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
When William Cleary purchased tickets from American Airlines on Monday, February 6, 2017 for a round trip from Los Angeles to Dallas at his home, he did so through the AAdvantage membership account of his wife — and the terms of the ticket specified that he could check his first bag at no additional charge…
…but when Cleary arrived at the airport on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 with a bag to check, he was required to pay a fee to check his bag by employees of American Airlines for both the outbound flight and the return flight.
Cleary clearly paid the baggage fees.
Final Boarding Call
This apparently is not one of those class action lawsuits with which the settlement is a coupon good towards a soft drink aboard the airline during a flight and expires in one year, as all customers who were affected will be reimbursed the full amount of the baggage fee.
Although the time to exclude yourself from this class action lawsuit was Friday, April 8, 2022, you are a member by doing nothing if you were affected — and you could stand to be eligible for reimbursement.
Additional details of the class action lawsuit — including eligibility — are found here.
All photographs ©2015, ©2019, and ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
