MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – A Venezuelan airline company is fighting a case filed by three Florida customers over allegations of breach of contract.
Santa Barbara Airlines CA, doing business as SBA Airlines, filed a motion to dismiss Zoriadia Laya, Domingo Guerro and Efren Sanchez’s amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on July 31.
The plaintiffs filed the suit, the motion states, because of an “an alleged undisclosed fee or tax of $80.” The fee was an exit fee for their flight from Miami to Venezuela.
According to the motion, the plaintiffs claimed SBA did not disclose the fee and the fee should have been charged and collected at the same time they bought their airline tickets.
SBA states in the motion that the fee was in fact disclosed. According to the motion, SBA’s Contract of Carriage states, “[t]axes and fees are additional charges to the applicable fare.”
The motion goes on to say that the contract states those fees are paid “along with the fare.”
SBA states in the motion that not only does its contract state the existence of the free but SBA’s “website also displays a banner on the homepage that discloses the existence of the $81 tax.”
The motion also states the plaintiffs allege that the fee should be collected at the time of the ticket purchase and they should “include the charge in a ‘box’ designated for that purpose on the ticket.”
SBA said in the motion its contract states that fees can be collected at the airport. The motion goes on to state, “obviously, if the tax is not charged to the passenger at the time the ticket is purchased, there is no need to include that particular charge in a designated box on the ticket.”
SBA is represented by ReedSmith LLP of Miami and the Law Offices of Sherry C. Dickman, P.A. or Coral Gables, Florida.