Two San Diego County residents whose holiday plans were disrupted by the recent Southwest Airlines meltdown across the country have fought back by filing a proposed class-action lawsuit against the airline, claiming unlawful and deceptive business practices.
The lawsuit, filed last week in San Diego Superior Court, comes as the beleaguered airline is encouraging customers to apply not only for refunds for canceled flights but also reimbursement for incidental expenses — from rental cars and hotel stays to meals. In addition, it is offering what it is calling "significantly impacted" passengers 25,000 rapid rewards points as a goodwill gesture.
Such gestures, says San Diego attorney Alexander Dychter, mean little in the face of a widespread travel disruption that robbed many customers of precious holiday time with their friends and family.
"The candy they're handing out to people does not absolve them of their sins," said Dychter, whose law firm specializes in class-action litigation. "The bottom line is that they engaged in unethical business practices, they sold tickets they knew or should have known could not have been fulfilled. Now they're doing a PR blast and dangling points to people. What good are points if people don't have confidence to fly on an airline that doesn't respect them."
The airline, the suit claims, should have known well in advance that it would be unable to fulfill all flights booked during the busy holiday period "due to woefully inadequate staffing and complete inability to provide services as promised."
At the heart of the suit is the systemwide collapse of Southwest's flight operations following a severe storm that ultimately forced it to slash its schedule by two-thirds in order to reset its operations. In San Diego alone, Southwest canceled 676 flights in and out of the airport during a four-day period last week, according to FlightAware, which tracks flights globally. By last Friday, Southwest had resumed normal operations.
The airline on Wednesday declined to comment on the litigation, but underscored the effort it is undertaking to make its affected customers whole.
"We have a long and proud 51-year history of delivering on our customers' expectations, and we are committed to the all-important imperative of taking care of them during operational disruptions," the airline said in an emailed statement. "In fact, on Dec. 28, we launched a website to assist customers with requesting refunds and reimbursements, and those requests are being processed and issued."
For those customers whose flights were scheduled to operate between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2 but were canceled or delayed longer than three hours, the airline is issuing rapid rewards points that have a fare redemption value of more than $300.
Southwest also posted an update on Tuesday noting that during the New Year holiday weekend the airline operated 11,092 flights, which represented a completion rate of 99.1 percent.
The San Diego lawsuit cites the experiences of two local residents who were impacted by the cascade of cancellations during the holiday period.
Carla Hill, the suit states, had purchased a flight for her son, paying an "exorbitant" round-trip ticket price of $590 to fly him from Columbus, Ohio, to her home in San Diego County on Dec. 23. That flight was subsequently canceled.
"At present, other than being emotionally distraught by not seeing her son, she is out-of-pocket approximately $1,000 in SWA fees, and hundreds of dollars to seek rebooking (on) alternative airlines," the suit states.
The second plaintiff, Cameron Youssef, had traveled to Nashville, Tenn., with his family for the holiday but they were unable to return home the day after Christmas because their return flight was canceled. Youssef ultimately returned home three days later, but only after booking a flight on another airline, causing him to miss three days of work, Dychter said.
His firm, he said, did not solicit potential plaintiffs for a class-action suit. At least a dozen dissatisfied Southwest customers had contacted his office before the suit was filed, and since word got out about the litigation, he said he has received dozens of calls and emails from other customers.
The lawsuit alleges a number of illegal acts, including breach of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violations of California's unfair competition and false advertising laws.
In addition to refunds, the suit is seeking "consequential and incidental damages" stemming from the scrapped flights. It also wants to hold Southwest accountable by seeking an order prohibiting Southwest from "issuing tickets that it knows or through any reasonable diligence should know, it cannot perform due to staffing or internal operations issues," Dychter said.
The San Diego suit is not the only litigation to be filed in connection with Southwest's canceled flights. A Louisiana resident, whose Dec. 27 Southwest flight from New Orleans to Portland, Ore., was canceled, also has sued the airline on behalf of a proposed class of aggrieved customers, seeking refunds of their ticket purchases.
The suit, filed in federal court, asserts that "Southwest's failure to provide prompt refunds for canceled flights violates not only its own Contract of Carriage, but also federal law."
