American Airlines Reaches settlement in checked baggage fee lawsuit

American Airlines will pay at least $7.5 million as part of a lawsuit settlement reached last week against the carrier for overcharging customers for baggage fees.

According to The Washington Post, a group of impacted passengers from Texas, California, Missouri and Minnesota claimed in a Forth worth federal court that American charged them checked bag fees despite having airline status, credit card or premium ticket exemptions.

Before the case went to trial, lawyers reached a preliminary deal in August and presented the settlement of at least $7.5 million plus legal fees to Judge Reed O’Connor, who must approve the agreement.

Impacted travelers will be eligible for $25 to $200 refunds for each time they were improperly charged. Passengers who flew with American between February 24, 2017, and April 9, 2020, will be covered by the settlement.

Administrators handling the settlement fund said impacted travelers would be contacted. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the carrier earned around $1.2 billion in luggage fee revenue last year.

American has also been dealing with a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice and six states alleging the Northeast Alliance with JetBlue amounts to a merger and violates antitrust law by creating a monopoly.

American CEO Robert Isom made his first appearance at the federal courthouse in Boston earlier this month, testifying the Northeast Alliance was born largely out of competition with Delta.