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Don Difiore; Leon Bailey; Ritson Desrosiers v. American Airlines, Inc

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Before Boudin, Lipez and Howard, Circuit Judges.

In September 2005, American Airlines, Inc. (“American”) began charging passengers a fee of $2 for each bag checked with porters who provide curbside service (called “skycaps”) at Boston’s Logan Airport. Arguing that passengers mistook the fee for a mandatory gratuity for the skycaps and stopped tipping, several porters brought suit against American; the present appeal is a product of that litigation. The facts and proceedings are as follows.

Some passengers at Logan carry their own luggage into the airport and some have it brought inside to the counter by skycaps, but a great many check their luggage onto flights at curbside; ordinarily, the skycap will take the luggage from the curb, write up the baggage tags, and place the luggage on a conveyer belt destined for the airline cargo facilities. Prior to 2005, American made skycap services available to its customers free of charge–beyond the plane fare–with the airline bearing the cost of skycap labor and other facilities involved in curbside check-in (conveyer belts, rent for space).

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