A Big Bump for Bumping

The seasoned air traveler acquires a high tolerance for most man-made frustrations. He can take in stride the long check-in lines, extended circling in approach patterns while the air traffic thins out, missed connections, even an occasional trip by his suitcase to Chicago after he got off at Memphis. There is one experience, however, that never fails to boil him: being "bumped" off a flight on which he holds a valid ticket and confirmed reservation. The odds against its happening, according to the airlines, are 2,000 to 1, but given the numbers of Americans who fly each year, those odds translate into a sizable contingent of very angry people.

One such passenger, on April 28,1972, was Ralph Nader, bete noir of the American business establishment, who showed up at the Washington National Airport just five minutes before Allegheny Airlines flight 864 was to take off for Hartford. Nader was on a tight schedule to appear at two consumer rallies in Connecticut. He had no seat.

Nader demanded to know whether standby passengers had been boarded, was told instead that the airline would fly him to Philadelphia by air taxi to connect with another flight due to arrive in Hartford two hours later. This Nader refused, and in due course he filed suit against Allegheny.

It turned out that Allegheny had sold 107 tickets for the 100 seats on flight 864, typical of industry practice designed to compensate for "no-shows." The central issue of Nader's suit was a charge of fraudulent misrepresentation by the airline in failing to notify passengers of deliberate overbooking.

In the first finding in the suit, U.S. District Judge Charles Richey awarded Nader $10 in compensatory damages and $25,000 in punitive damages; another $51 compensatory and $25,000 punitive damages went to the Connecticut citizens group that sponsored the rallies Nader was unable to reach. However, the Circuit Court of Appeals set aside this judgment, holding that lawsuits like Nader's should not be decided until the Civil Aeronautics Board, which has been studying the mirror evils of no-show and overbooking for years, had more time to rule on appropriate penalties for overbooking. But last week the Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Lewis F. Powell, ruled with Nader and the legions of the bumped. Their common-law right to sue, without further reference to the CAB, was affirmed.

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