Supreme Court stays consumer court order penalising Lufthansa

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed a consumer court order penalising German airline Lufthansa, which a businessclass passenger complained had misled him by advertising lie-flat seats which weren’t actually flat.

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in April this year asked the airline to pay the passenger, Vivek Talwar, Rs 50,000 as compensation and deposit Rs 20 lakh with the Consumer Welfare Fund. It had also asked Lufthansa to pay Rs 10,000 as the cost of litigation to a consumer group that took up and fought the case.

Lufthansa appealed the order and, on Tuesday, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Jasti Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre stayed it for now and decided to examine the matter at length.

Talwar, who flew Lufthansa from Mumbai to Dallas via Frankfurt on September 1, 2008, claimed he was misled into believing that the seats would be flat at 180 degrees. Otherwise, Talwar said he would have travelled on other airlines which have lie-flat seats. He claimed that he could not sleep through the 20-hour flight.

Lufthansa said its lie-flat seats in the business class were comfortable enough at a 170-degree recline and were in keeping with international flying standards. These seats could stretch up to 2 metres and its recline was more than what was provided in its economy class.