Delta, Northwest lose appeal to stop passenger lawsuit By Laurie Asseo Bloomberg News Posted June 3 2003 Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to keep a group of passengers from acting collectively in pursuing a $4 billion claim the carriers overcharged on some travel routes. The justices refused to hear the airlines' argument that the passengers should only be allowed to sue individually in alleging the carriers monopolized certain routes. US Airways Group Inc., also a defendant in the suit, didn't join the appeal to the Supreme Court in Washington. The antitrust suit accuses the airlines of unlawfully trying to bar "hidden-city ticketing," a practice that lets travelers avoid higher fares to hub airports by buying cheaper tickets for other final destinations. The traveler disembarks at the hub city, paying the reduced fare. The facts of the individual claims are too diverse to be tried collectively, the airlines said. The lawsuit presents "highly generalized hub-based evidence, which lumped 234 separate antitrust markets into a one-size-fits-all analysis," lawyers for Delta and Northwest said in court papers. Atlanta-based Delta is the third-largest U.S. airline by passenger traffic; St. Paul, Minn.-based Northwest is the fourth-largest, and US Airways, based in Arlington, Va., is the seventh largest. The lawsuit accuses the airlines of conspiracy and of maintaining monopoly prices on routes to their hub airports by trying to keep travelers from buying and using part of a cheaper ticket. The passengers say the policy helps airlines charge higher fares for flights to their hub cities, which are routes they dominate, than for flights to other cities where they face greater competition. The suit seeks damages of almost $1.5 billion, which after being tripled under antitrust law would total $4.4 billion, lawyers for Delta and Northwest said in court papers. The lawsuit claims that at least as early as 1992, the airlines agreed to try to stop the practice, such as by making travel agents enforce their policies. Travel agents account for most ticket sales, passengers' lawyers said in court papers. A federal judge in Detroit in May 2002 allowed the plaintiffs to pursue the suit as a class action. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in November refused to hear the airlines' appeal. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.natalielaughlin.com/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************