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A possible class-action lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Tuesday seeks to hold some top U.S. airlines accountable for selling windowless window seats.
Attorneys for San Francisco resident Marc Brenman and Los Angeles resident Aviva Copaken sued United Airlines, saying the airline’s practice of charging fees for window seats that do not actually have windows is “unlawful, unfair and fraudulent.”
The suit says Copaken flew three times this year and paid United to reserve a window seat.
“On each of the three occasions, she was disappointed to discover that her ‘window’ seat did not have a window at all,” the suit said. “She paid between $45.99 and $169.99 to select the ‘window’ seat on each of those flights.”
Copaken declined to participate in an interview, her attorney said.
According to the complaint, Brenman faced a similar situation when flying from SFO to Washington, D.C., in April. He paid a premium for a window seat that did not have a window.
“Brenman prefers a window seat so that he can watch the view as he crosses the country,” the suit said.
The suit said United offered both passengers refunds, but the passengers’ lawyers said the refunds were “insufficient to compensate” them.
The attorneys who filed the suit, Carter Greenbaum and Casey Olbrantz, also filed suit against Delta Air Lines on Thursday in New York, making nearly identical allegations. The suit claims United and Delta each have “likely sold over a million windowless ‘window’ seats. The suits are seeking “compensatory and exemplary damages” for the carriers’ “serial and intentional wrongdoing.”
Both suits mention how some of Delta and United’s competitors handle windowless window seats.
“American Airlines and Alaska Airlines operate the same kinds of aircraft with windowless ‘window’ seats,” the suit said. “But unlike Delta [and United], when travelers select such seats, American and Alaska specifically disclose that the seat has no window view.”
NBC Bay Area sought comment from Delta and United. Delta declined to comment. United’s media relations office said, “since this is an ongoing legal matter we don’t have anything to share.”
News of the suits first surfaced this past week. Prior to that, various social media posts have shown airline passengers who booked window seats expressing astonishment that their seat was missing a window. Newsweek even wrote a story about one such post in 2024.
In a 2019 post on its website, Alaska Airlines addressed passengers’ curiosity about windowless window seats.
“Every aircraft in Alaska’s Boeing fleet has a seat or two, on the left side forward of the wing, with either partial access to a window or no window at all,” the airline wrote.
Alaska Airlines then quoted a senior engineer with an explanation as to why.
“That’s the spot where Boeing places the air conditioning riser ducts from the belly – where the air conditioners are located – to the cabin ceiling, where the air distribution ducts are at,” said John Melvin, Alaska’s director of fleet engineering. “The vertical ducts are located behind the passenger compartment sidewall panels and they prevent the installation of a window in one row on the left side. This is standard on all Boeing 737 aircraft, not just ours.”
You can try to see if your next window seat is windowless by using a “seat map” tool such as TripAdvisor’s SeatGuru.com. Look for seats that are colored red.
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Chris Chmura
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