Update- A few coworkers of mine received this email this morning so it does appear to be a staggered sending of emails. Still nothing in my inbox but spreading nevertheless.
This afternoon my wife received an email regarding a lawsuit against American, Delta, Southwest, United, Continental and US Airways. The lawsuit, that all airlines have rejected, states that the carriers listed conspired to increase fares on domestic flights between July 1, 2011 and June 14, 2018 by limiting capacity. Even though the airlines have stated their opposition to the lawsuit and have countered with their own evidence to the contrary, Southwest and American have decided to settle to simply end the ordeal. Will the others follow? Below is a copy of the received email.
Southwest has agreed to settle for $15 million while American has agreed to $45 million. The list of fliers who took a domestic trip during that time frame would be staggering so even the promise of a payout seems hard to imagine. I’ve seen lawsuits like this in the past so I’m not sure what to make of it at first but will research more to see if the offer is worth the email that was sent. One thing that is certain is that if you accept the settlement offer by adding your information to the website, you will forfeit any opportunity for a lawsuit in the future. So if you did have a personal bone to [pick with these airlines, you may want to think twice.
As for the email, I’m not sure why my wife was targeted and I have yet to receive. My guess would be that this would be a staggered mailing to control website flow, but at this point I have nothing to back that up. I will wait to see if I receive a notice or anyone else I know for that matter, but for now I’ll simply research the settlement and wait for the remaining airlines’ responses.
Below is a bit more information on the lawsuit from the links provided in the email and a small snippet of their Q & A.
https://domesticairclass.com/
https://domesticairclass.com/Court-and-Settlement-Documents
If you received an email, let everyone know.
“Live within your means, Travel beyond them!”
Let’s see, according to the USDOT, there were between 700 and 800 million air travelers a year from 2011-2018 … let’s call it 700 million becasue not all airlines are involved in this class action suit. 7 years times 700 million is 4.9 billion travelers. Divide 60 million dollars by 4.9 billion trips and each trip is “worth” 1.2 cents. But wait, the attorneys will probably get 30% so the actual net will be 8.5 cents per trip. Wow!
That stick of bubble gum will certainly make us all feel vindicated!
One of the reasons a lot of people won’t receive this is that it is going into spam. That’s what happened with me. I would never have seen it had I not checked my google mail spam folder. Also, as TPD points out, it really does look very spammy even though it isn’t.
I received it on my work email. Attempted to go to the website and our company firewall blocked it so I delete the email. As with most of these class actions, the only people that make out are the lawyers.
I’ve received it twice; I’m an occasional American traveler and a Southwest A-Lister. Haven’t acted on it.
Now that’s the first time I heard of receiving two but along with many others not acting on it, I understand. We have yet to act on it either in our household.
I received this email myself but I had the same question, why me and not my husband? He traveled just as much as I did so why is the target email list selective? I received this email just yesterday.
My response to my wife is that I call her the better half. Apparently everyone thinks that! Truthfully I believe this to be a staggered roll-out to reduce traffic to the websites, but that’s just a guess since many are just receiving still while others have had for over a week.
I’m an attorney, received this same email, and this doesn’t look legit. Nowhere does it list the law firm that’s representing the plaintiffs as normal protocol in class action settlements. I’d suspect this is a phishing scam.
Quick Google search found this. Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP and Hausfeld LLP.
Snopes has also verified as true but admits may be tough to get money of course.
So basically it’s spam then?
Possibly. I also thought that about the Ticketmaster lawsuit but have been to 4 free concerts as part of that so I guess there’s the slim chance??? Very slim possibly?
That is certainly something we can count on 100%.
Another example of a class action lawsuit that will do nothing for the alleged offended class but will definitely enrich a bunch of lawyers.