The named plaintiff in a class-action suit, a New Jersey woman, paid $7.99 for in-flight DirecTV on a trip from Puerto Rico but could use only ten minutes of it because the flight was mostly over water, where the signals don’t reach. Her lawyers are suing United Airlines over its alleged failure to “disclose that the services will not work as advertised when the aircraft is outside the continental United States or is over water” and want to represent a class of all DirecTV or wi-fi users who might have been affected. [Road Warrior Voices]
9 Comments
This seems like a completely legitimate lawsuit.
I agree with SPO. I’ve always assumed that the internet and TV offerings are satellite based and therefore wouldn’t be affected by travel over water, and the sales literature definitely doesn’t describe how the system functions, so I don’t know why you would expect an average customer to be aware of this without any disclosure.
Whatever happened to double your money back guarantees?
Did the airline offer to refund the $7.99? If not, they are jerks and I feel little sympathy for them, even though I wouldn’t file a lawsuit myself. If the airline did offer a refund, the plaintiff and her lawyer are jerks.
I disagree, Hugo. I think they’re all jerks. The air line should note that the service doesn’t work over the water, but probably relied on not everyone asking for their money back. And taking it to court is the action of a jerk.
Bob
Not if they refused to give the refund. I have no idea if they did; I didn’t see that in the complaint. If a business essentially cheats you out of money, no matter how little, you aren’t a jerk for trying to get it back. I agree with Hugo.
United says they disclose to passengers at the time of purchase the parameters and geographic restrictions of the service. In a statement, United says:
“We believe this suit is without merit both factually and legally. On our DirecTV-equipped planes, we clearly inform our passengers in writing on the screen before they confirm their purchase that ‘Live DIRECTV programming is not available while the aircraft is outside of the continental United States’ and that ‘Wi-Fi service is available over the continental U.S.’”
If that warning does appear, I have no sympathy for the plaintiff or anyone who doesn’t read the disclaimer. If it is big and bold and in their face, the only person responsible for not reading it is the person buying the service.
If that’s true, then sure. But if it’s in the middle of a bunch of fine print, I have much less sympathy for the airline.
Gotta wonder about an implied warranty. The airline, better than anyone else, knows the route to be flown. A slightly westward path could have the plane cover land most of the way, over islands and following the coast, whereas other viable paths would be ocean all the way.
Rather than bury the system availability in boiler plate text that is invariant of conditions, the airline site could define for the customer the expected utility. Especially relevant as the customer does not steer the plane’s course.