Opinion ID: 1795326
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Related to an Airline's Services

Text: To answer whether a claim is preempted by the ADA, we first determine whether the claim is related to an airline's prices or services within the meaning of the ADA's preemption provision. Kiefer, 920 S.W.2d at 281. The ADA does not specify, and the United States Supreme Court has not determined, what activities constitute airline services. It is not surprising, then, that courts have fashioned inconsistent tests for determining whether a state law action is related to an airline's services. Compare Charas v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 160 F.3d 1259, 1261 (9th Cir.1998), with Hodges v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 44 F.3d 334, 336 (5th Cir.1995). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has narrowly defined services as the prices, schedules, origins and destinations of the point-to-point transportation of passengers, cargo, or mail. Charas, 160 F.3d at 1261. That court reasoned that because the word services appears next to the words rates and routes in section 41713(b)(1), services must refer to the provision of air transportation to and from various markets at various times. Id. at 1266. Under this interpretation, in-flight beverages, personal assistance to passengers, handling luggage, keeping aisles clear, and other amenities are not included in the definition of services. Id. at 1261. The Fifth Circuit's more expansive interpretation of airline services includes ticketing, boarding procedures, provision of food and drink, and baggage handling, in addition to the transportation itself. Hodges, 44 F.3d at 336. Hodges relied in part on the CAB's statements implementing the ADA, which made clear that reservation and boarding practices are services within the meaning of the ADA. See id. at 337 (citing 44 Fed.Reg. 9948, 9951 (Feb. 15, 1979)); see also Smith v. Am. W. Airlines, Inc., 44 F.3d 344, 347 (5th Cir.1995) (limiting services to economic decisions concerning boarding, e.g., overbooking or charter arrangements, and contractual decisions whether to board particular ticketed passengers). The Hodges court reasoned that, because these matters are all appurtenant and necessarily included with the contract of carriage between the passenger or shipper and the airline, Congress intended them to be services protected from state regulation. 44 F.3d at 336. In this case, Black's claims relate to Delta's boarding procedures and seating policies. Although several courts have fashioned different tests to determine whether a state law action relates to an airline's services, most courts generally agree that state law claims involving seating and boarding procedures relate to services. [5] This approach is consistent with both the Fifth and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' conclusions that an airline's boarding procedures are an integral part of the services that an airline provides. See, e.g., Somes v. United Airlines, Inc., 33 F.Supp.2d 78, 85 (D.Mass.1999) (noting that both the Fifth and Ninth Circuits' definitions of services would include boarding). The mere fact that Black's claims relate to the denial of first-class status, rather than point-to-point transportation, does not remove his claims from the definition of services. See Wolens, 513 U.S. at 226, 115 S.Ct. 817 (noting that the term services includes access to flights and class-of-service upgrades). Unlike the frequent flyer program in Wolens, seating policies and boarding procedures are not peripheral to the operation of an airline, but are inextricably linked to the contract of carriage between a passenger and the airline and have a definite connection with, or reference to airline services. Morales, 504 U.S. at 384, 112 S.Ct. 2031. Given Morales' broad interpretation of the words relating to, and the generally accepted understanding of the word services, we conclude that an airline's boarding procedures and seating policies relate to the services an airline provides to its customers. We next consider whether the ADA prohibits enforcement of Black's claims.