Frontier Airlines Class Action Lawsuit Filed After Flight Delay

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Frontier Airlines has been hit with a class action lawsuit by a family whose flight was allegedly delayed more than six hours because of the airline’s negligent maintenance of the aircraft.

Plaintiffs Volha Budlyna and Marina Snopova Dmitriy Prigorenko filed the Frontier Airlines class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and their two minor children. They assert Frontier Airlines violated Articles 19 and 22(6) of the Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air.

The plaintiffs allege that they purchased tickets to fly internationally from Chicago to and from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on Frontier Airlines. According to the Frontier Airlines class action lawsuit, their flight was delayed more than six hours, and the plaintiffs were “confined” in the departure area of the Punta Cana airport without being given access to food, beverages and lavatories.

The Frontier Airlines class action lawsuit asserts that the flight delay was caused by the airline’s negligent maintenance of an aircraft rather than extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided. The plaintiffs claim that their flight was scheduled to depart from Punta Cana at 3:50 p.m. However, their flight did not depart until 9:50 p.m. They arrived in Chicago at 2:05 a.m. the next day, and were reportedly kept on the plane for an additional hour before they were able to exit the aircraft.

To make matters worse, the plaintiffs state that the airline’s employees failed to advise the passengers about the cause, nature, extent and duration of the delay of departing flights. Further, they were allegedly not provided with any travel-related assistance by Frontier.

According to the Frontier Airlines class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs arrived at their destination more than 12 to 24 hours later than their pre-planned arrival time and missed several days of work. The plaintiffs claim they incurred about $650 in out-of-pocket costs for local accommodations, food and transportation. Because they missed work, they also suffered additional damages from the flight delay.

The plaintiffs allege that “as a direct and proximate cause of delayed departure of flights operated by [Frontier Airlines], the plaintiffs were needlessly subjected to compensable economic actual, general, special, incidental and consequential pecuniary damages, including but not limited to travel cancellation expenses, loss of vacation time, loss of benefit of their bargain, per diem and lodging expenses, indifferent treatment, inconvenience, physical discomfort, physical exhaustion, financial injury of loss of time and loss of benefit of their bargain,” in addition to their out-of-pocket expenses.

The plaintiffs are seeking approximately $6,500 in damages per Class Member from Frontier Airlines for the delay in air transportation. By filing the flight delay class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek to represent a Class of passengers who were on Frontier Airlines flight 81, which departed on Jan. 28, 2016 from Punta Cana to Chicago, and whose flight was delayed or cancelled without adequate notification.

According to the flight delay class action lawsuit, both the United States and the Dominican Republic are signatories to the Montreal Convention treaty.

The plaintiffs are represented by Vladimir M. Gorokhovsky of Gorokhovsky Law Office LLC.

The Frontier Airlines Flight Delay Class Action Lawsuit is Budylina v. Frontier Airlines, Case No. 1:16-cv-03373, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.