Recent Rulings Find Preemption of State Law Claims and Enforce Airline Contracts of Carriage

In the past few months, courts have issued several decisions favorable to the airlines finding preemption of various state law claims and rejecting breach of contract claims. The decisions address a variety of passenger claims ranging from delays, denied boarding, discrimination and airline mistreatment. Each case resulted in a positive outcome for the defendant airline.

In Migdelany v. Am. Airlines Corp.,¹ three passengers and the travel company that booked their flights sued the airline for breach of contract and rude customer service even though the passengers arrived at the incorrect airport for their return flight from South America to the United States. The travel company, rather than book the passengers' return flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina (with the rest of their travel group), mistakenly had made reservations for return travel from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The court granted the airline's motion for summary judgment, concluding there could be no breach of contract by the airline because it was completely prepared to transport the passengers to the U.S. from Rio de Janeiro — the city that the plaintiffs had contracted for as the place of their departure. The airline clearly had complied with the terms of its contract of carriage with the plaintiffs and, in fact, reimbursed the plaintiffs for the unused portion of their airfare, even though it was not required to do so.

In Buenos Aires, the airline also offered to reschedule the plaintiffs on a flight later that week. The plaintiffs, however, refused the offer and purchased tickets with another airline to return to Boston that same day. While the plaintiffs alleged that they were "abandoned" and mistreated by the airline's employees in Buenos Aires, the court dismissed their claims with prejudice holding that they were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA).² Under the ADA, certain actions that relate to an airline's prices, routes or services are expressly preempted by the statute. Because the plaintiffs' claims relating to their alleged mistreatment were directly related to the airline's boarding procedures — which is an airline service,³ — the court held that they were preempted and dismissed them with prejudice.

State consumer protection claims were held preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) in Banga v. Gundumolgula.⁴ In this case, the plaintiff sought a refund for her mother's tickets because a medical condition prevented her mother from flying. Having not received any refund after communicating with the travel agency, the plaintiff brought claims against the airline under California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), a consumer protection statute, alleging that the airline engaged in unfair business practices, fraud, misrepresentation and deceit. Relying on Fitzgerald v. SkyWest Airlines, Inc.,⁵ and In re JetBlue Airways Corp. Privacy Litig.,⁶ the court held that the plaintiffs' refund claims directly related to the airline's reservation and ticketing procedures, which qualify as "services" under the ADA.

The plaintiff's request to amend her pleading also was denied on futility grounds because her claims were filed more than two years from the date of the flight. The airline's contract of carriage expressly required that any action for compensation be brought within two years of the date of arrival at the passenger's destination. Although recognizing that state law may provide a longer statute of limitation, the court nonetheless enforced the contractual limitation period.⁷

In Aboeid v. Saudi Arabian Airlines Corp...