I'm really struggling to get my head around the emotional trauma here. He bought the unlimited ticket, got many multiples of value from it over 30 years, and then they renegged. Had they never offered the ticket, he would have paid much more overall (even though he would almost certainly have also flown less), and would only be exactly where he is now: a poor schlub who has to buy airline tickets to travel. Where is the loss?
In the many multiples of millions of dollars the ticket would have saved him over the next 30-40 years?
The fact that something the airline sold was a terrible idea doesn’t make it right to suddenly take it away.
And to be honest, if literally every action taken by him was actually proxied through AA employees, and nobody said anything. I can’t really see why they would have any ground to stand on in regards to cancelling the ticket.
He built a strong emotional relationship with the employees and then got cut off, abruptly, at the airport, with them not only unwilling to let him board his flight but unwilling to help him get his luggage back.
On top of that, they wouldn’t tell him why (at the time).
This was his life for many years. Emotionally it must have been similar to showing up at home one day and discovering your wife had locked you out and filed for divorce with absolutely no warning, and you had no idea what happened.
The pass supposed to last for lifetime, it doesn't matter if he got more value during the time he had it, they took something very very valuable from the man, its easy to see the emotional trauma it caused.
People often feel emotional trauma when they're reneged on or sued. It doesn't necessarily have to be done by a person for the victim to feel betrayed. I'm thinking of Uzi Nissan, the owner of Nissan Computers, who is still getting sued by Nissan Motors to turn over nissan.com to them. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he feels a certain emotional pain about all that.
I'm also finding it difficult to empathize with the trauma. Seems like he traveled to Agra, India, so he must have met people that are not only below the flight line, but that will not and cannot leave a 10km circle for the rest of their lifes.
Personally, I have bound with people below the flight line and ever since I cherish every flight I take, although it's in economy class and I have to pay for it.
I have empathy for the loss of his son. The pain of ticket loss is harder for me to feel but I get it that people grow accustomed to their place no matter what level and a sudden fall will hurt and bring on depression even if where they land is actually better than 90% of the rest of the population.
I agree he got his money worth out of American Airlines many many times over, so he should just accept it and pony up for airfare like everybody else now. From the article it seems like he can afford it, previously working at Bears Sterns and being able to afford $250k for the initial unlimited pass.
Plus, there was a clause in the contract about fraudulent use, and it certainly seems he was using it fraudulently booking empty first class seats for his luggage and such.
I don't know, he took a lot of risk that the company would continue to operate over decades. Should early investors of unicorn startups forfeit their equity after getting a fixed multiple of their investment in dividends?
That is a perfectly resonable position to take - if American Airlines was also renegging on things like stock agreements, they'd have a internally consistent point, abeit one few people would agree with. This is just naked fraud though.
Yet the terms never said that what he was doing was considered fraudulent, and they'd known for years he was doing it. It's not like the people who were letting other people use their passes, which is clearly fraudulent. This is ambiguous at best. He was doing something regular first class passengers do all the time, perfectly legitimately: booking extra seats for bags/space/etc, or changing plans at the last minute. Nobody told him this wasn't allowed.
This is a typical HN comment. People here always seem to think that laws in contracts are like code, with strict rules and consequences.
It was ruled that his use was fraudulent, so it was, that's the end of it.
You cannot use a contract like a strict rule, bend it in the "ambiguous zone" and think nothing will happen. Contracts are broken all the time.
He may have respected the letter of the contract, but not the spirit, and that is enough to end the contract without compensation.
Similar cases happen very frequently. I remember a case of somebody using his unlimited internet access to run a server, and getting his contract canceled because his use was comparable to a business use, even if the server was not part of any business and the internet subscription never explicitly prevented such use.
He might have a case based on the fact that AA not only knew about his bookings, but actually assisted him in every one of them, without ever warning him.
If they tolerate and assist something like this for a long time, the clause forbidding it may become invalid, depending on the situation, similar to customary law situations.
