Article: Airline Passenger Strikes Back and Wins Money from the Airlines

From CNN Money, we read about a victim of the infamous "weather-related" flight cancellation. As many of you know, if an airline cancels a flight they are often times obligated to refund your fare. However, if the cancellation is due to weather conditions, they don't owe you a dime (what, you didn't read the fine print?).

It seems to me this system provides financial incentive for airlines to more readily blame cancellations on weather, even when those claims of "no-fly" conditions are stretching credibility. And this man took them to task for it:

On Feb. 21, 2008, Mitchell Berns heard every flier's two least favorite words: weather related.

Citing snow, Delta Airlines was canceling his flight from Las Vegas to New York City and rescheduling him for a redeye connecting in Boston. With 47% of all delays so far in 2008 caused by weather (up 5% from last year), most fliers can relate. And they know that normally this story ends with a bleary-eyed tale recounted the next day at the water cooler. Not this time. It ends in court, with our traveler $838 richer.

Berns, 55, is a securities litigator with Lane Sash & Larrabee in White Plains, N.Y. On that night he was flying home from a romantic getaway with his wife, who was pregnant with twins. Seeing that other airlines' planes were still departing as scheduled, Berns asked Delta to refund his ticket so that he could book one of those flights. They told him (politely, as he recalls) that weather-related cancellations or delays are not the airline's fault and do not come with a refund.

Berns checked the National Weather Service report. It said snow that day was expected at five the next morning -- hours after his flight was scheduled to land. He and several other passengers from his Delta flight easily booked a JetBlue flight departing at the same time. His tab: $938. He landed at J.F.K. on schedule.

Back at home, Berns did what any consumer with $15 (in New York City) and a working knowledge of English (or Spanish, in most states) can do: He filed a small-claims suit against Delta for $938. Delta did not show up to defend itself, so on June 12 he won a default judgment.

When a legal analyst from the airline called him two weeks later to negotiate a payment, he declined an offer of frequent-flier miles ("Confederate currency," in his words) and made a counteroffer: If you pay me within two weeks, I'll knock $100 off. Delta agreed but asked for a confidentiality agreement. Berns said they couldn't have both, and Delta took the discount. (A Delta spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)

The real kicker of this article is the fact that flights from other airlines had flights departing at the same time. Obviously airlines have differing weather policies, but booking a JetBlue flight while being told Delta's planes couldn't fly mitigates any claims of severe weather.

Again, with this system in place, it's no surprise supposedly weather-related cancellations have increased 5% since 2007.

Click here for the full article...