A St. John the Baptist Parish woman claims that three major airlines are in the midst of a conspiracy to restrict output of airline tickets and thereby fix, raise, maintain or stabilize prices of passenger airline tickets.
Paula A. Ates filed a class action lawsuit against Delta Airlines Inc., American Airlines Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. on Aug. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana citing a violation of the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act.
In her lawsuit, Ates claims that the airlines are colluding to "limit seat capacity and signaling other airlines on how quickly they would add new flights, routes and extra seats in order to limit the capacity of passenger airline travel in the United States." And she is basing this, the lawsuit claims, on personal knowledge, information, belief and investigation of counsel.
Ates is represented by Matthew M. Moreland, Daniel E. Becnel Jr. and Jennifer L. Crose of the Becnel Law Firm LLC in Reserve.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana case 2:15-cv-02228-NJB-MBN