A JetBlue passenger says they had their laptop fried when a flight attendant spilled an iced coffee all over them. The crewmember “apologized, brought me a cheese plate, and gave me a $25 voucher” and they left it at that until they realized the laptop would no longer work.
Reaching out to the airline, they were told:
[T]hey can’t claim responsibility because there’s “no evidence.” I understand accidents happen, but this feels really unfair since I reported the issue right away on the plane, and it was clearly caused by their employee.
What’s going on here?
My Laptop On A JSX Flight
When a lavatory flood ruined a passenger’s laptop a couple of months ago, United Airlines offered 5,000 miles as compensation.
@united needs to reimburse me for toilet water exploding on my bag under my seat pic.twitter.com/kMGi41M8K5
— Baptize Machine Podcast (@BaptizeThe) October 10, 2024
@united offered 5000 miles for breaking my $1200 laptop in a toilet flood have not even gotten miles pic.twitter.com/Kj9cZhFcxf
— Baptize Machine Podcast (@BaptizeThe) October 10, 2024
Paddle Your Own Kanoo points out that JetBlue’s contract of carriage limits its liability to property in the custody of the carrier.
[JetBlue] will assume no liability or responsibility for property carried onboard an aircraft by a Passenger and retained in the custody of the Passenger.
And while it is ordinarily true that JetBlue isn’t liable for belongings that remain under your control, or that’s damaged by another passenger, here it is the actions of a JetBlue employee that caused the damage (whether negligently or not). I’m not sure that the contract of carriage absolves the airline of liability.
For armchair lawyers in the comments, let me suggest: by offering the voucher, did JetBlue accept liability? By accepting the voucher, did the passenger acknowledge this as full compensation for their claim?
Some people might have liked to spill coffee on Sam Bankman-Fried’s laptop
It seems to me like the best course here would be to see if credit card baggage insurance exists here. We usually think of it for checked bags, but the stuff you bring on the plane can be covered too if you use a card that offers it to purchase the ticket.
For instance here are links to American Express card coverage details. Computers are considered ‘high risk’ items where the coverage cap is generally going to be $1,000 (rather than $2,000). In this case it seems like a claim would be worthwhile, if the passenger used a card with lost and damaged bag insurance for their trip.