Friday, October 20, 2017
A passenger is suing a Canadian airline for serving sparkling wine instead of champagne.
Daniel Macduff from Quebec was flying on a low-cost Canadian carrier, Sunwing Airlines, as be bought a package holiday to Cuba.
The holiday advertised a “complimentary onboard champagne toast”, but instead, Mr. Macduff and his fellow passengers were served sparkling wine. What’s more, they only received the bubbly on the outgoing flight. On the return home, they went without.
The lawyer of the passenger said that the lawsuit isn’t about the merits of sparkling wine versus champagne, but about Sunwing’s misleading marketing. The marketing materials included several references to “champagne”, which is a strictly controlled term, given only to those wines produced in the Champagne region of France. The lawyer repeated in his statement that it is not about the mere champagne versus sparkling wine but the wrongly stated consumer message behind it.
In a statement, Sunwing called the class action “frivolous and without merit”, saying that terms like “champagne vacations” and “champagne service” were commonly used “to denote a level of service in reference to the entire hospitality package“ rather than referring directly to the drinks served on the plane.
There are plenty of airplane passengers’ complain everyday pertaining to serious issue such as space-squeezing, decreasing baggage allowance and less free food and then there are issues like this.
Sunwing has already removed references to its “champagne service” in current marketing materials, and says instead that it offers sparkling wine.
Some months back, there was video of an Emirates flight attendant pouring a glass of champagne back into the bottle which went viral.
