Airline passenger rights activist sues Delta Air Lines for ‘hacking’ her e-mail, personal computer

A leading advocate of the rights of airline passenger has sued Delta Air Lines, based in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, for allegedly hacking her e-mail accounts and personal computer.

Kate Hanni, founder and executive director of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights (also called FlyersRights.org) alleged that Delta Air Lines did the hacking with a view to sabotaging her group’s lobbying work to pass the federal legislation to help stranded airline passengers.

In the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the United States, Kate Hanni stated that she learned recently from America Online that the passenger rights coalition’s AOL e-mails were being “redirected to an unspecified location.” The e-mails thus tampered with included lists of donors, spreadsheets, and other information about the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, she said.

According to Kate Hanni’s complaint, Delta Air Lines starting hacking the e-mails in 2008 and that other files on her computer were “hacked, copied and then corrupted,” making all those data useless.

Kate Hanni’s is suing Delta Air Lines and Metron Aviation (the private company based in Dulles, Virginia, the United States, engaged in developing traffic flow management – TFM – systems) to find out  how both the firms got hold of her correspondence.

According to her, Delta Air Lines “stole” the data in her laptop and used it to sabotage the efforts being made by the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights to get the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights of 2009 passed through Congress.

The Airline Passengers Bill of Rights is intended to compel airlines to recognise passenger rights in the event of long tarmac delays and also provide the passengers with food and water as well as access to clean air and restrooms. The Bill also includes an option for the passengers to leave the plane if the tarmac delay lasts beyond 3 hours.

Kate Hanni states in the lawsuit that her opponents had “good reason to target her” because, if the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights of 2009 got passed through Congress, airlines would lose at least $40 million in revenue through providing the services to the passengers that are required by the new law.

Reacting to Kate Hanni’s allegations, a spokesman of Delta Air Lines denied that the company was involved in any hacking, adding that “obviously the idea that the Delta Air Lines would hack into somebody’s e-mail is clearly without merit.”

Metron Aviation said in a statement that any allegations suggesting that it behaved illegally or improperly in this matter are “completely baseless and without merit.”

Delta Air Lines and other members of the Airline Transport Association, the trade organisation that represents the major United States-based airlines, are opposed to the legislation on tarmac delays that is pending in US Congress.