A passenger rights advocate accused Delta Air Lines Inc. in a federal lawsuit Tuesday of conspiring with a Virginia company to obtain hacked e-mails from her computer to help them derail her efforts to protect air travelers from lengthy tarmac delays and other inconveniences.
The suit, filed by Kate Hanni of FlyersRights.org in U.S. District Court in Houston, seeks at least $11 million in damages and a jury trial.
Trebor Banstetter, a spokesman for Delta, the world’s biggest airline operator, denied Hanni’s accusation. “Obviously, the idea that Delta would hack into someone’s e-mail is clearly without merit,” he said in an e-mail. He said Delta can’t comment further on the lawsuit.
Hanni and her group have been a thorn in the side of the airline industry, pushing Congress to enact a passenger bill of rights as airlines are suffering from big revenue declines.
Among other things, Hanni supports a three-hour time limit for passengers being stranded on tarmacs.
Legislation pending in the Senate would require that passengers be allowed to get off the plane after three hours. There are exceptions when the pilot believes the plane will take off in the next half-hour or it might be unsafe to leave the plane.
The lawsuit claims that while Hanni was sharing information with a graduate student working for Metron Aviation Inc. of Dulles, Va., her personal computer files and FlyersRights.org e-mail accounts were hacked. She said her service provider, America Online, confirmed the hacking.
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