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  • Southwest Airlines is sued for not providing refunds after meltdown

    Southwest Airlines is sued for not providing refunds after meltdown

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    NEW YORK, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) has been sued by a passenger who said it failed to provide refunds to passengers left stranded when an operational meltdown led the carrier to cancel more than 15,000 flights late last month.

    In a proposed class action filed on Dec. 30 in New Orleans federal court, Eric Capdeville accused Southwest of breach of contract after a fierce winter storm that swept across the United States shortly before Christmas upended the carrier’s schedule.

    Though Southwest has promised to reimburse passengers for expenses, Capdeville said it offered only a credit to him and his daughter after scrapping their Dec. 27 flight to Portland, Oregon from New Orleans and being unable to book alternative travel.

    Affected passengers “cannot use their airline tickets through no fault of their own and they are not getting the benefit of their bargain with defendant,” the complaint said.

    Capdeville, a Marrero, Louisiana resident, is seeking damages for passengers on Southwest flights canceled since Dec. 24, and who did not receive refunds or expense reimbursements.

    In a statement on Tuesday, Southwest had no comment on the lawsuit, but said it had “several high priority efforts underway to do right by our customers, including processing refunds from canceled flights, and reimbursing customers for expenses incurred as a result of the irregular operations.”

    Capdeville’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

    The meltdown at Dallas-based Southwest has been blamed on staffing shortages and outdated flight scheduling software.

    Southwest has said it would reimburse affected passengers for reasonable expenses such as last-minute hotel, rental car and dining costs, but it might take several weeks.

    The carrier largely restored normal operations on Dec. 30, several days after other airlines had recovered from the storm.

    In a Dec. 29 letter to Southwest Chief Executive Bob Jordan, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the disruptions “unacceptable” and said the law requires refunds when carriers cancel flights unless passengers accept rebooking.

    The case is Capdeville v Southwest Airlines Co, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 22-05590.

    Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • U.N. General Assembly calls for Russia to make reparations in Ukraine

    U.N. General Assembly calls for Russia to make reparations in Ukraine

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    Nov 14 (Reuters) – The United Nations General Assembly on Monday called for Russia to be held accountable for its conduct in Ukraine, voting to approve a resolution recognizing that Russia must be responsible for making reparations to the country.

    The resolution, supported by 94 of the assembly’s 193 members, said Russia, which invaded its neighbor in February, “must bear the legal consequences of all of its internationally wrongful acts, including making reparation for the injury, including any damage, caused by such acts.”

    The resolution recommends that member states, in cooperation with Ukraine, create an international register to record evidence and claims against Russia.

    General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, but they carry political weight.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the resolution an “important” one.

    “The reparations that Russia will have to pay for what it has done are now part of the international legal reality,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

    Kyiv’s Ambassador to the U.N. Sergiy Kyslytsya told the General Assembly before the vote that Russia has targeted everything from factories to residential buildings and hospitals.

    “Ukraine will have the daunting task of rebuilding the country and recovering from this war, but that recovery will never be complete without a sense of justice for the victims of the Russian war. It is time to hold Russia accountable,” Kyslytsya said.

    The United Nations headquarters building is pictured with a UN logo in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 1, 2022. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

    Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the General Assembly before the vote that the provisions of the resolution are “legally null and void” as he urged countries to vote against it.

    “The West is trying to draw out and worsen the conflict and plans to use Russian money for it,” Nebenzia said.

    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on the Telegram messaging app that the “Anglo-Saxons are clearly trying to scrape together a legal basis for the illegal seizure of Russian assets.”

    Fourteen countries voted against the resolution, including Russia, China and Iran, while 73 abstained, including Brazil, India and South Africa. Not all member states voted.

    In March, 141 members of the General Assembly voted to denounce Russia’s invasion, and 143 in October voted to condemn Moscow’s attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine.

    Zelenskiy on Saturday said Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure in the strategic southern city of Kherson before fleeing. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, although the invasion has reduced Ukrainian cities to rubble and killed or wounded thousands.

    “It will take a broad international effort to support Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction in order to build a safe and prosperous future for the Ukrainian people,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the assembly.

    “But only one country, Russia, is responsible for the damage to Ukraine, and it is absolutely right, as this resolution sets out, that Russia pay for that damage.”

    Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; editing by Grant McCool

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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