Frontier Airlines has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines in a Florida district court seeking damages in excess of $100,000 after one of its planes was so badly damaged during a ground collision at Miami International Airport (MIA) that it had to be taken out of service for six months for extensive repairs.
The lawsuit, which landed on the desk of a paralegal at American’s headquarters at Skyview in Fort Worth, Texas, last month, has now been formally filed in court and accuses the carrier of gross negligence and negligent training and supervision.
The legal complaint, reviewed by PYOK, explains that American Airlines agreed to pay Frontier for the repair costs incurred as a result of the accident, but the two sides have been unable to reach a settlement on other costs that Frontier says it has incurred.
The budget carrier is demanding that American Airlines pay compensation for lost revenue and profits from the damaged aircraft being out of service for six months in 2024, as well as operational disruption and lease payments it continued making even though the plane was grounded for months on end.
Frontier’s complaint expresses frustration with safety standards at American Airlines, saying the incident in Miami was far from isolated, and in 2024 alone, there had been another incident involving an AA aircraft damaging a Frontier plane on the ground at Boston International Airport.
The incident at the heart of this lawsuit occurred on March 7, 2024, when an American Airlines Boeing 777-300 was being pushed back from its gate at MIA for its departure to Sao Paulo as flight AA-929.
The American Airlines plane was parked in an alley with gates on either side. On the opposite side of this alley was a Frontier Airlines Airbus A321neo, which was parked at the gate due to a ground delay program that was in force at that time.
Frontier’s attorneys say the A321neo was parked well within the designated gate area, but the pushback team for the AA flight conducted an “out of compliance pushback” in which the Boeing 777 encroached into the Frontier Airlines plane’s safety buffer zone and ultimately collided with its vertical stabilizer, attached to the tailfin.
The collision caused “significant structural damage” to the vertical stabilizer, and after assessment by Airbus engineers, it was decided that the stabilizer was beyond repair.
Instead, the plane had to be grounded for six months while the stabilizer was completely removed and a new one was attached. In the end, the aircraft didn’t return to service until September 4, 2024.
“As a direct and proximate result of American’s conduct, Frontier incurred substantial damages, including repair costs, loss of use of the Frontier aircraft, lost profits, and other operational and consequential damages,” the lawsuit reads.
By September 2025, the two parties had reached a partial settlement covering the repair costs for the plane but not the other damages that Frontier says it has incurred.
Repeated pushback accidents, Frontier claims, had placed American Airlines “on notice of systemic deficiencies in its safety practices, training, supervision, and compliance protocols, yet American failed to implement corrective measures.”
American Airlines has yet to respond to the lawsuit. The case is being handled in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida under case number: 1:26-cv-20686.
