Montreal Convention Archives

A Kentucky couple is suing Lufthansa and United Airlines for damages resulting from a series of events that caused them to miss a family vacation in Florida.

According to the complaint, Vladimir Shtapov and Vera Shtapova, residents of Louisville, Kentucky, were scheduled to leave the City of Perm (Russian Federation) on June 30, 2009 and return home to Kentucky in time to leave for a vacation in Florida with their son and his family.  The complaint states that the following series of events then occurred:

- The couple was supposed to board the June 30th Lufthansa flight back to Kentucky via Frankfurt, Germany at 3:20am but at 6am, the LH agent advised that "the cargo door would not close" and the flight was cancelled.
- They spent 2 hours in line waiting for the booking agent to have their tickets reissued for a flight the same day.  They were then told that the tickets could not be rebooked on a different flight because they were originally issued by UAL and they would need the authorization of the LH team lead who was not present at the time.  They were told to "go home and wait for the call from the LH team lead."
- The LH team lead called at 1pm and informed them that they were booked on an American Airlines flight the following day, July 1, 2009, out of Moscow.  The flight from Perm to Moscow was operated by Siberian Airlines with the rest of the trip operated by American with a rerouting layover in Chicago.
- When LH agents rebooked on AA, they advised that they could not guarantee wheelchairs in the airports and no wheelchairs were in fact provided, requiring the couple to walk to all departure gateways.
- The couple arrived in Kentucky more than 24 hours later than originally planned and "were not able to attend our family gathering and vacation in Florida."  The 'Statement of Events' attached as an exhibit to the complaint states that the couple was "subjected to spoliation of our vacation plans" and "Because the hotel cancellation was done at the last minute, we lost the suite that we had originally reserved and had to stay in a regular room instead."  (The complaint does not indicate when they eventually went to Florida and stayed in the "regular room.")

Read the complaint after the jump.

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