Delta Air Lines and United Airlines were ordered by a federal judge to face a consumer antitrust class motion accusing major US carriers of conspiring to drive up domestic airfares by reducing the number of obtainable seats.
In a call on Tuesday, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, DC, said passengers offered a “fair amount” or circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy to scale back seating capability to be able to boost profit.
“Defendants engaged admittedly and openly within the practice of capability discipline on domestic flights, with the effect that diminished capability resulted in higher industry profits,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a 70-page decision.
Two other defendants, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, previously settled for a respective $45 million and $15 million. Neither admitted wrongdoing.
The lawsuit began in 2015 after the Justice Department began investigating airlines for potential anticompetitive practices, and continued despite the fact that no charges were brought.
Passengers said that a conspiracy starting in 2009 to implement what the carriers called “capability discipline” artificially inflated ticket prices and reduced flight alternative.
Delta and United called their seating capability reductions a legitimate response to reduced demand, rising fuel prices and the 2008 global financial crisis. United called it “perfectly rational Economics 101.”
Each carriers went through bankruptcy not long before the purported conspiracy began, with United emerging in 2006 and Delta emerging in 2007.
Delta on Wednesday said it would proceed defending against the lawsuit, and has “all the time independently determined its capability based on market demand.”
United said it was upset with the judge’s decision, and can seek to have it reconsidered or file an appeal.
The American and Southwest settlements won final court approval in 2019. Payouts won’t begin until claims against Delta and United are resolved.
The case is In re: Domestic Airline Travel Antitrust Litigation, US District Court, District of Columbia, No. 15-mc-01404.
