In August 2025, two nearly identical lawsuits were filed: one against United (in San Francisco federal court) and one against Delta Air Lines (in Brooklyn federal court). They claim that each airline sold more than one million “window seats” on aircraft such as the Boeing 737, Boeing 757, and Airbus A321, many of which are next to blank fuselage walls rather than windows.
Passengers say they paid seat-selection fees (commonly $30 to $100+) expecting a view, sunlight, or the comfort of a genuine window seat — and say they would not have booked or paid extra had they known the seat lacked a window.
As reported by Reuters, United’s filing argues that it never promised a view when it used the label “window” for a seat. According to the airline, “window” refers only to the seat’s location next to the aircraft wall, not a guarantee of an exterior view.
In any case if you’re on a flight longer than a couple hours you’re not allowed to open them anyway, they make you keep em shut so people can nap 🙈 But it’s fun to look out for the takeoff and landing. But the planes that tint the windows are the best.
Wouldn’t that be the definition of, “Bait and switch”??? Which is already illegal?
You PAY EXTRA for a WINDOW SEAT and there’s no window?! Why would someone pay more then? What would be the point of paying more if there’s no “window” seems very cut and dry! That’s like paying extra for an aisle seat and get a middle seat, that’s NEVER in question, they are just trying to get people’s money! Savages!
This just proves don’t fly United nor Delta… which they are already super high priced anyways…
Its time
I’m going to grease up the blade ways
Past time
“War is peace”
That’s what they are trying to pull. Look it up.
According to the airline, “window” refers only to the seat’s location next to the aircraft wall
Then call it “wall seat”
It’s like trying to call the non runway parts of airports ramps, aprons and taxiways. Because technically none of it is made with tarmac anymore but the general population is too stupid to go back so now that’s what it’s all called.
I don’t understand your gripe here. What’s wrong with those terms?
Ought to call them skin seats since they’re next to the planes skin
The agreement was im paying 355 dolars for a window seat. If ‘window seat’ just refers to the location, then dolars just refers to the fact its an amount of currency, and ill have my bank adjust the payment to reflect that was in pesos.
Cool. So since the government is going to side with this bullshit: I say that “income tax” doesn’t mean a tax on my income.
This scam already exists. That’s why Jeff Bezos pays a much lower rate on what is - bullshit aside - his income.
Since I don’t technically ‘come’ ‘inside’, so I won’t pay it
Avoiding being forced to buy a minivan, I see. Clever you. 🤌🏼
Sprinter or a Transit. Not a minivan. Full sized van. Heck an Econoline 1500 or similar conversion vans would work if they still made conversion vans.
I mean, don’t charge extra for something then not deliver it. Seems cut and dry.
If the aisle/middle/window in coach all cost the same price then no one would have any standing to sue. The airlines charged customers extra. They did this to themselves.
Ironically, that could be the technicality they’re banking on. They aren’t charging for the window seat - they’re charging for the ability to select your own seat which is the same regardless of where you select.
Delta not only charges you for the privilege of selecting your own seats, but charges you for the “preferred” aisle or window seat.
Here’s a flight in January 2026 to Atlanta:
And here’s the seat key denoting the aisle and window seats as “preferred”
No, I think any seat change costs the same price, no matter if you switch from window to somewhere, or from somewhere to window.
And this is why the civil court system is just plain broken. Despite the astronomical cost of taking this upsurd stance in court, it is worth it. Thier needs to be damages assesed for the absurdity of the logic used to force something to cost more court time than it should get.
That’s punitive damages, but they aren’t punitive enough to discourage this behavior. The courts don’t work for us.
Yup. Make it 10x actual damages for this kind of bullshit. Then they’ll stop, maybe.
Thier needs
Whose?
dismiss with prejudice/disbar the lawyers that push these lawsuits at all
course, there are plenty of rigged court systems in the US that justify their whole existence via these sham lawsuits, so…
Would a reasonable person assume that is what it meant? Probably not. United should lose this case.
Any person that saw an aircraft from the inside before probably. Some window seats are in between two windows, so technically they’re double window seats.
cut and dry
Next there won’t be a seat, the term “seat” just means the place you stand for the whole trip
If airlines could get away with stacking people in there like a transatlantic slave ship they would do it.
As a mildly tall person, not even exceptionally tall, flying as it is already is borderline painful. The seat space is not built for anyone who isnt pint sized
You know I wouldn’t mind flat bunks though, like stack 3 high. You have a table time to go sit and eat and have a coffee then back to the bunk.
I saw a plan years ago that was basically that. ‘seats’ were planks leaned back at a ~°70 angle, reducing space in between to like 1 foot per person.
As a a 5’11” person, yeah it’s painful to fly.
Just imagine if you were 6ft! The horror!
Ryan Air has entered the chat.
If the seat doesn’t include a window then it needs to be called a wall seat. This is an open and shut case of false advertising.
They’ll try and argue that it’s just the generic term that is most familiar to their customers, not a specific definition of what you will find if you take that seat. “Aisle” “middle” and “window” are just commonly-accepted shorthand for the first, second, and third seats in a row, not prescriptive definitions.
Source: I once worked for a Extended Warranty company and they do the exact same crap. The product they sold is a service contract, it has nothing whatsoever to do with actually extending your existing warranty. But they were allowed to keep calling it an “extended warranty” and use that term predominantly and market off it, because that is the term that is in common usage for the product they sell. All they had to do was add tiny text at the bottom of the site that said “A service contract is often referred to as an “extended car warranty,” but it is not a warranty.” 🤣🤣🤣 At worst, the airlines will have to do something like that.
Or at least put a monitor running Microsoft.
No, I already get nauseous traveling.
At one point in my career, they moved us to a long white room with no windows. (The reason this particular room on this floor did not have windows was that on the wall, where the windows normally would have been were large external letters on the outside of the building spelling out the original name of the building. So of course you couldn’t have windows behind the externally mounted letters.) And their attempt at making it bearable was to put giant vinyl stickers of somewhat cartoonish window scenes along the big long outside white wall. I did not enjoy working in that space.
At least they tried
ah yes the fresh taste of that (checks notes) vinyl sticker air
Yeah, lets stare at a blue screen for five hours because the screensaver coded in Electron crashed minutes after takeoff.
It is a seat that is closest to the windows for the row. This is an open and shut case of common fucking sense
That isn’t what the name implies. Way to move goalposts. You should work for united.
Would you have the same opinion it if they didn’t include a seat either? Since there are two words at play here and we’re apparently making gross allowances for meaning in one could we do the other? Would it be acceptable if they placed you near the area with a seat?
"Seat” refers only to the location allocated near to a row of seats, not a guarantee of actual place to sit.
What kind of legal linguistic creep are we going to tolerate under this heading of “common fucking sense”?
I promise the airlines don’t need you defending them on lemmy.
Not defending them, and don’t care. There are a bunch of self righteous people on here who think they’re coming up with a profound statement when it’s just common sense they need.
deleted by creator
If they had marked which particular seats didn’t have actual windows, it’d likely be fine to keep the terminology.
I know you are getting downvoted, but I call the seat furthest from the aisle the “window” seat no matter what is on the “far” side of it.
So, I think it’s entirely possible that United wins this case in front of a judge. If it gets decided by a jury, I’d expect at least one person of the 12 (or so) to insist that “window seat” means there has to be a window.
reminds me of this meme:
“Sweet window seat, bro”
United, probably
I too have a photo like that. ER-175J (OO) if I remember correctly.
This is so fucking dumb. It has that “boneless wings can contain bones” judgement energy from Ohio awhile back. 🤦🏻
It has that “boneless wings can contain bones” judgement energy from Ohio awhile back
I’d be with ya, but the ‘may’ here happens through error; not through deception.
That case does at least make some sense. All meat products can contain bone due to them being from you know animals.
Basically they felt that encountering bones in a meat product is a normal, acceptable, and understood risk.
Now if he was give a plate of boneless wings and each wing was full of bones that would be a different case entirely.
This was an inadvertent bone fragment. Can happen in any meat product.
My issue with boneless wings is that they are not Wing meat at all. They’re chicken tits.
“Hey, just callin to check in with ya! I’m sittin here with two breasts in my hands…chicken breasts! BIG HEARTY LAUGH!!!”
Isnt the drumstick, which is most people’s preferred “wing”, actually the thigh part of a chicken?
No. Those are technically drumettes, and they’re the upper part of the wing, shoulder to elbow.
The drumstick is the portion from knee to foot. The thigh is the… Thigh.
no. boneless means without bones. there’s no “acceptable risk” when the package says there’s no risk.
Doesn’t matter, now places can sell fully boned pieces as “boneless” without the labor of removing the bone and at the higher price of actually boneless pieces.
No that’s not what the judges ruled at all or how civil cases work.
Civil cases do not set precedent in this way. Yes they can be used to support other cases, but in civil court each case is examined through it’s own merits.
Even if it did work the way you suggested (it doesn’t but for fun), this ruling would only apply to the state of Ohio since it was ruled on by that state’s court. Meaning companies would then have to produce Ohio exclusive boneless wings with bones and distribute them only in Ohio. Which would be not only be expensive, but also ensure their customers stop buying their product.
Yup as soon as this happened all the restaurants stopped removing bones from the wings and now boneless wings are impossible to get thanks to this ruling we are famished
Had a McDonald’s chicken nugget the other day. Entirely bone.
The little boot nugget even still had chicken toe bones.
Pizza is a vegetable
I am so tempted to open a wing shop in Columbus and wait for a Justice to come in so I could serve them boned “boneless style” wings.
I didn’t follow that story, but if it was over some suit over bone chips, I’d donlt think that it’d be analogous. Normally, “boneless wings” are less-desirable than regular wings. Boneless wings are just reconstituted chicken, so you can use scraps and stuff for them. It’s kind of like the relationship between steak and hamburger.
But with hamburger, you can occasionally have a bone chip make it in.
That’s in contrast to a window seat, where a window seat is often considered to be preferable, and someone not getting one would feel like they’re being mislead as to the actual value of what they’re getting.
Like, I wouldn’t expect truth-in-advertising issues to come up with boneless chicken; you wouldn’t likely wouldn’t get boneless chicken wings because of an aversion to bone or something, where that’s your main goal.
kagis
Yeah:
It doesn’t sound like it’s a false advertising case with the chicken, but a product safety one.
I disagree with the ruling because the bone in question was described as “long, thin”. If it was just bone chips, then it wouldn’t have caused the complainant issues. Because of that description I think the liability should (ultimately) be on the party the was responsible for deboning the chicken.
I could be wrong about how liability cases work, but I think the Ohio case should have held the restaurant liable for the complainant’s injury/distress but allow their findings to be carried into a suit from the restaurant against the supplier of the bag of boneless wings.
No deboning process is going to be perfect, but that’s what liability insurance is for. I do think no “long, thin” bones should make it through a reliable deboning process, tho.
