Academic

Spirit Airlines Tries To Charge Cancellation Fees On Passengers It Put On Flight 1549 (yes, the one that landed in the Hudson River).

By Ann Bartow

From here:

Rob and Jeff Kolodjay were scheduled to fly on Spirit Airlines to a golf vacation with four other friends on Thursday out of LaGuardia in New York City. Their flight got cancelled, and they rebooked their flight to US Airways flight 1549.

While the Kolodjay?s have good things to say about US Airways, they are less pleased about the policies of their original carrier. When they tried to cancel the return tickets on Spirit they could not use because they never made it to Myrtle Beach, the company representative insisted on charging them a cancellation fee.

Rob Kolodjay said his conversation was blunt, ?We survived this air crash and I need your credit card number, he said ‘and our policy is we’re going to charge you $90.”?

It’s unclear if Spirit plans to try to collect the fee, however, the credit card the group was booked with is still on the plane, which is sitting on a barge in the Hudson River.

US Airways has been more accommodating according the Kolodjays. They claim their luggage might be returned to them soon, including Jeff?s now lucky set of golf clubs.

An update notes that Spirit Airlines has backed off its demand, one has to guess in response to the bad online press it was receiving, which I felt compelled to amplify here given the ruthless and/or clueless audacity initially at work.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).