Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are being sued by passengers who said they paid extra for a window seat, only to find a view of a wall.
The pair of proposed class-action lawsuits filed Tuesday allege that each airline “has likely sold over a million windowless ‘window’ seats.”
Delta customers could spend over $70 to choose a seat, with $40 of that spent on upgrading to a higher ticket tier, the suit said. The complaint against United said the cost often exceeds $50 on domestic flights, and $100 on international ones.
“For many, it is a special experience to see the world from 30,000 feet,” both suits say.
“Windows can captivate or distract an antsy child. For many with a fear of flying or motion sickness, windows provide a greater level of comfort in an otherwise stressful environment,” they add.
The suits say that Boeing 737 and Airbus A321 jets, and Delta’s Boeing 757s, have blank walls instead of windows at some seats due to the placement of air conditioning ducts, electrical conduits, or other components. On a Boeing 737-800, this is at either seat 10A, 11A, or 12A, depending on the configuration, per the complaint.
They add that competitors American Airlines and Alaska Airlines include warnings while booking that such seats don’t have a window view — but United and Delta don’t.
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Ryanair, the Irish budget airline and Europe’s largest by passengers carried, also alerts customers and charges less for them, the suits say.
Aviva Copaken, a plaintiff in the United suit, said she took three flights in May out of Los Angeles. She paid between $45.99 and $169.99 to choose a window seat on these flights, but none of them had a window, per the complaint.
It adds that United has refunded her for two of them.
Another plaintiff, Marc Brenman, said he used points to choose a window seat on a flight from San Francisco to Washington, DC, in April, but also found it didn’t actually have a view. The airline refunded him 7,500 miles, but the suit says this was “insufficient to compensate him for the extra fees and benefits he utilized.”
The plaintiff in the suit against Delta, Nicholas Meyer, said he flew from New York to California earlier this month. On his connecting flight out of Atlanta, he sat in seat 23F on a Boeing 757-200, which turned out to be windowless, the suit alleges.
United and Delta did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider.
