On an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Tampa, a passenger sitting in first class says that a flight attendant spilled ed wine on them while serving the person seated ahead of them. She says the wine ran behind the seat into her $2,000 Louis Vuitton bag and damaged her socks, shoes, sweatpants, a laptop, Beats headphones, and a new Cartier ring box.
- The crewmember gate her paper napkins, and she got sent to customer service.
- She tried filing a claim but got passed around from gate agent to baggage claim to telephone to web complaint forms. She filed multiple complaints and sent of an e-mail to the CEO.
- Her demand? $7,000 and a refund of her ticket.
Live and Let’s Fly flags that she posted the dispute to TikTok, tagging American, and included the flight attendant’s full name and employee number. She says the flight attendant gave those to her to try to be helpful with the incident.
Surely American should cover actual costs for damages they’ve caused, though they’d be properly entitled to some maximum limit. Passengers choosing to wear priceless artifacts, for instance, shouldn’t create unlimited liability that could bankrupt a company. Maybe they should add some miles, too.
But (1) it seems likely that the actual items aren’t totally ruined, (2) nor are they worth as much as she says they are (and she’s not likely entitled to more than depreciated value in any case). Clothes can be cleaned. So can Louis Vuitton bags. And she should go to Cartier to replace the ring box.
And while the flight attendant may have provided their information, that’s no excuse for publicly doxing them. As a general matter I post employee names when they put those out on social media themselves, or when they’re at the Managing Director level or above.
Now, American is clearly not being helpful and that’s not surprising. Getting real help from a big company can be challenging and this is one that’s cut back on their call centers. You do have plenty of avenues to escalate disputes with an airline (including a consumer complaint to the Department of Transportation, and small claims court). But your demands should appear on-face reasonable or the airline will garner more sympathy than you’d expect.
If this happens to you, you want documentation like photos and videos. You want to log names and seat numbers. And you should ask for an incident report to be written. Get items cleaned and that’s the cost you should be seeking if the cleaning works. And don’t post employee names and ID numbers.
United ruined a passenger’s laptop and offered 5,000 miles JetBlue offered a $25 voucher and a cheese plate after spilling coffee on a passenger’s laptop. So the going reimbursement rate appears to be very low.
@united offered 5000 miles for breaking my $1200 laptop in a toilet flood have not even gotten miles pic.twitter.com/Kj9cZhFcxf
— Baptize Machine Podcast (@BaptizeThe) October 10, 2024
An American Airlines flight attendant once was said to have ruined a passenger’s wedding dress by opening an overhead bin causing wine to spill on it.
It never became clear how opening the overhead bin caused wine to enter the woman’s carry on bag, or how her wedding was ruined by this – she’d already been married a year, had her nine-month old son with her, they’d just never done the celebration so I guess that could wait? They put off the celebration because of… law school. So the passengers thought they were a bit too clever by half?
It’s amazing the damage a spilled drink can do – a woman on Singapore Airlines claimed to have developed arthritis and diabetes because a flight attendant spilled a drink. Oh, wait. This is real.
- The drink spill her husband to “‘jerk’ into her” causing her to hit her leg against the metal footrest in front of her (Singapore long haul economy seats have foot bars).
- Hitting the foot rest caused a ‘soft tissue injury’ which led to “cellulitis… aggravation of rheumatoid arthritis; aggravation of type-one diabetes”
Singapore Airlines was actually sued, in part, for providing foot rests in economy. Although there was no Zapruder Film to help sort through what really happened there.
The way she described the damage make you think the FA might spilled sulphuric acids instead of wine.
Oh well then if it was a Luis Vitton bag you can afford the loss but it was probably made in China therefore counterfeit!
LV shoppers apparently are not high class. LV maintains its heritage of travel bags. LV might sue the passenger for being an obnoxious parasite that harms LV’s classy travel image. Just like Ferrari has restrictive contacts with its buyers.
Let’s not forget that people put themselves in harm’s way. The window seat is the safest from these types of accidents. She should go to small claims court and see what the judge says. I don’t see a refund on the ticket as she was flown per the contract. She could have gone to the bathroom and rinsed most things off including the bag. Plenty of paper towels there. The bag may be able to be professionally cleaned so that there is little change. Maybe if the judge was sympathetic, she would get a couple thousand. To vary a saying: “don’t pour wine on my bag and say it’s only worth a few napkins.”
Sure I guarantee that she did not have more than $500 worth of damage. With that being said, good luck with American.. They are the worst!
Gary, the mistakes! Letter omissions, word omissions, wonky grammar, wrong airline attribution… you need a proofreader! 😉
Oof. That overflowing-toilet photo at the end… YIKES!
Doxing a FA? That’s one way to get on the fast track to being banned.
Zapruder Film? We all know Kennedy shot himself from the grassy knoll in order to correct a time – travel disaster.
When did Ed’s BFF start flying AA to Tampa?
I love my wife a little more after reading this.
BOO HOO. Poor baby. Only FOOLS pay that kind of money for a hand bag.
@Gary: Coase. She should be made whole. Since the facts of the spill are not disputed, AA pays her the retail of the plastic LMVH bag (or provides a new copy of the bag itself if they can source it for less). She give the old bag to AA. They sell it, reclaiming its true as-is value.
AA should just provide a suitable replacement for her loss. In this case, a plastic grocery bag. Same exact functionality. It holds other stuff so you can easily carry it. Anyone who pays $5k for a container is a terrible person who is dead inside. I’m 100% sure she didn’t earn the money she’s wasting on that crap.
@Mantis – Fascinating. You had a choice of attacking workers or misogyny, and you chose the latter. The bigot’s dilemma.
Hopefully the FA will sue the greedy tiktoker for the doxing. Lesson learned.
A wine “spill” damaged all that stuff? Wow must have dropped the whole jug..
@1990
And you chose another inane leftist victimhood trope, as usual. You’re a retard.
Sucking airline dick again Leff?
Time has value too. Airline error, airline cost to fix. Boo hoo a sky waitress had her name revealed. They’re employed in the public face.
What a skank. If she wants to take American to task for something that’s peripherally their fault, fine. Doxxing the FA is Trailer Park Karen level behavior though and absolutely unacceptable. That behavior deserves a lifetime ban for doing that to someone who was just trying to help.
@Mantis – Amen. In fact, I think this should be the new VFTW comment section standard. Rather than @1990, we all simply ignore that handle completely and agree to respond @Retard to this worthless dolt from now on.
@Mike Hunt
Agreed. Now the only question is whether @Retard is too much of a retard to know who we are referring to him (he’s probably a they actually, as confused leftists usually are).
Spilled wine on her while FA was serving the customer ahead of her? How is that even possible?
On a side note, why do you use the pronoun them twice and the switch to she.
Probably written by AI with proof writing.
Typical Karen that takes a $7K bag with her on a flight.
he airline is only liable for legal negligence. Not all accidents involve legal negligence. If the spill was caused by turbulence or jostling, the airline has no liability. Even where legal negligence is proved, the claimed damages seem excessive. The measure of damages is the loss in fair market value or cost of repair — whichever is LESS. For used items like these, fair market value is not based based on replacement value, but rather is based on the before and after fair market value of used items, based on their age and condition before and after. A used Louis Vitton bag that retails for $2,000 is probably worth less than half that on Poshmark or other used luxury goods marketplace websites. Ditto for a used laptop or used headphone. Used clothing even less. BTW her homeowner’s or renter’s insurance should cover this, and, in some states, insurance benefits you have are deducted from what you can claim. So, maybe she gets something, but not a ticket refund and not anything close to $7,000.
Jay Leno just called he wants his chin back.
Aren’t her damages limited by either DOT rules or the airline’s contract of carriage or both?
Ed wine will get you every time.
Ed was a horse of course of course
If a flight attendant spills wine on you or your belongings, yes the airline should pay appropriate damages – cleaning or replace a device if damaged by the liquid. If they don’t, air crew have free reign in damaging anything of a passenger.