JPML Transfers Airline Price-Fixing Class Actions to D.C. Federal Court

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On Oct. 13, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established an airline price-fixing multidistrict litigation in Washington D.C. federal court, consolidating 23 antitrust class action lawsuits filed against several top airline companies.

The plaintiffs of these consolidated class action lawsuits similarly allege Southwest Airlines Co., Delta Air Lines Inc., United Airlines Inc. and American Airlines Inc. conspired to fix the price of their domestic airline tickets.

The 23 class action lawsuits consolidated in this airline price-fixing MDL are reportedly from seven different court districts across the United States. However, the JPML reasoned that that D.C. would be the reasonable locale for consolidation, as the U.S. Department of Justice is currently pursuing an antitrust investigation there and it will serve as a convenient court for this nationwide anti-competitive behavior litigation.

“Both plaintiffs and defendants support centralization in this district. Furthermore, the District of District of Columbia possesses the necessary judicial resources and expertise to manage this litigation efficiently,” the JPML states in its order centralizing the airline price-fixing class action lawsuits. “And, centralization in this district provides us the opportunity to assign the litigation to the Honorable Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an able and experienced jurist who has not yet had the opportunity to preside over a multidistrict litigation.”

According to the airline price-fixing class action lawsuits, Southwest, Delta, United, and American—the four of which collectively own 80 percent of the airline market share—kept their flight capacity artificially low in order to fix prices for the four airlines’ domestic flight tickets.

Earlier this year in July, the plaintiffs submitted a motion to consolidate the numerous airline price-fixing lawsuits against Southwest, Delta, United, and American, though proposed sites for centralization ranged all over the country from San Francisco to Louisiana. However, the defending airline companies supported those plaintiffs seeking Washington D.C. as the antitrust MDL site.

Dallas was another strong contender for the airline price-fixing MDL location, as it is the home to both American Airlines and Southwest, but the preferred Texas official U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn to preside over the consolidated antitrust cases already has several other MDLs to oversee.

According to the JPML, there are 69 related airline price-fixing class action lawsuits in 15 court districts across the United States that seek to represent overlapping nationwide consumer classes of domestic airline ticket direct purchasers. Furthermore, these class action lawsuits claim Southwest, Delta, United, and American engaged in anticompetitive behavior that violates the Sherman Act.

In addition to these airline price-fixing lawsuits, an attorney representing the defending airlines informed the JPML that the D.C. antitrust investigation is the culmination of 104 individual airline price-fixing lawsuits filed in numerous U.S. federal courts.

Plaintiffs that filed cases in D.C. are represented by Stephen R. Neuwirth of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP,  Ronald Aranoff of Bernstein Liebhard LLP and Kit Pierson of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, among others. Plaintiffs in other airline price-fixing class action lawsuits are represented by Warren T. Burns of Burns Charest LLP and Barbara J. Hart of Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart PC, among others.

The Airline Price-Fixing Class Action Lawsuit MDL is In re: Domestic Airline Travel Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 2656, before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
UPDATE: On July 21, 2016, Southwest Airlines contends that its business model is fundamentally different from those of other airlines in a way that precludes Southwest from plotting with them in a price-fixing scheme.

UPDATE 2: On Oct. 28, 2016, four of the largest airlines in the U.S. lost their bid to dismiss a nationwide antitrust litigation alleging they conspired to fix ticket prices by artificially limiting the number of seats available for travelers.

UPDATE 3: On Dec. 29, 2017, Southwest Airlines reached a $15 million settlement resolving claims that it conspired with other airlines to raise ticket prices.

UPDATE 4: On June 15, 2018, American Airlines agreed to pay $45 million to settle the price-fixing claims against them.

UPDATE 5: March 2019, a website has been established for consumers who purchased a domestic airline ticket on American, Delta, Southwest, United, Continental, or US Airways to find out about a pending class action lawsuit. Click here to learn more.