Delta Airlines Sued by Passenger Advocate

A passengers rights advocate is suing Delta Airlines after the U.S. air carrier allegedly hacked into the woman’s e-mail account. Kathleen Hanni, who is executive director of Flyersrights.org, claims that Delta illegally obtained e-mails which would aid them in railroading a new “Airline Passenger’s Bill of Rights of 2009″. Currently four versions of the bill are being reviewed by Congress.

Ms. Hanni filed the suit on Tuesday in front of a US. District Court in Texas and is looking for at least US$11 million from the airline giant. Flyersrights.org operates as a nonprofit and was founded in 2007. The company was currently researching tarmac delays in the airline industry. According to Ms. Hanni, she has been exchanging information via email with Frederick J. Foreman, an employee at Metron Aviation, which has been retained by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to research ground delays.

The lawsuit indicates that the information exchanged between Foreman and Hanni was with permission from Metron, and highlighted Delta as having excessive ground delays. Metron Aviation is also a target in the lawsuit. While corresponding with Foreman, AOL alerted Hanni that her emails and excess information in her account were being redirected to a destination that AOL could not trace. The suit also indicates that several of the files on Hanni’s computer have been corrupted.

The lawsuit indicates that the hacking began last year and continues to carry-on. It claims that Delta lashed out in anger about the information which would help the new bill get passed. Foreman has cooperated with Hanni’s lawyers and in an affidavit claims that the senior vice president of Metron showed him the hacked emails from Hanni’s AOL account.

The new bills that have been brought before Congress could see the airline industry lose out on $40 million in annual profits, as well as incur heavy compliance fees. The bills call for passengers to be allowed to deplane should they be delayed more than three hours on the tarmac. The bill would also allow the passengers access to clean air and free medical treatment.