United Airlines Will Face ‘Windowless Window Seat’ Lawsuit After Judge Dismisses Attempt to Have Case Thrown Out of Court

United Airlines must face a court case over ‘windowless window seats’ in a class action lawsuit brought by two travelers who accused the Chicago-based carrier of charging passengers an additional fee to sit at window seats that don’t actually have a window.

The lawsuit, which was filed in August 2025, by two United Airlines passengers, Aviva Copaken and Marc Brenman, claimed they had either paid with cash or used United frequent flyer points to book window seats, only to then find that their seats didn’t actually have windows.

Last November, United Airlines moved to have the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice on the grounds that the claims alleged in the case were barred by the Airline Deregulation Act. On Monday, California district judge James Donato ruled United’s argument didn’t hold.

Aviva Copaken says she had paid United $169.99 in additional fees to secure a window seat because she suffers from claustrophobia, which is relieved by looking out of the window of the airplane.

She had used the United Airlines mobile app to select her preferred seat for an additional fee and selected what was marked as a ‘window seat’ on the online seat map.

What she didn’t know, however, was that the seat she had chosen didn’t have a window due to the alignment of the seats along the fuselage of the aircraft.

The lawsuit alleges that United continues to deceive passengers by clearly marking windowless window seats as ‘window seats’ in its online seat maps.

The airline also annotates these seats as having a window on mobile and paper boarding passes, but United says there’s a very simple explanation for this, and just because it’s advertised as a window seat doesn’t actually mean there’s any guarantee you’ll get a window.

United is one of the few airlines that uses a boarding method known as WILMA, which stands for ‘Window, Middle, Aisle’, in which passengers sitting in window seats are asked to board first, followed by middle seat passengers, and then finally passengers sitting in aisle seats.

WILMA is designed to make the boarding process as efficient as boarding, but to make it work, the airline has to clearly state on a passenger’s boarding pass if they are in a Window, Middle, or Aisle seat – even if the window seat doesn’t necessarily have a window.

In its filing to have the case dismissed, United’s attorneys claimed that “the use of the word ‘window’ in reference to a particular seat cannot reasonably be interpreted as a promise that the seat will have an exterior window view.”

“Rather, the word ‘window’ identifies the position of the seat—i.e., next to the wall of the main body of the aircraft,” the filing added.

United went on to argue that the lawsuit should be thrown out on the grounds that its conditions of carriage preclude any implied promise that a window seat should actually have a window.

Judge Donato, however, didn’t necessarily buy that argument, writing in his opinion order: “Preemption does not bar claims arising out of an ‘airline’s alleged breach of its own, self-imposed undertakings.'”

“All of the claims in the FAC [First Amended Complaint] arise from contracts between United and its customers, or from other voluntary undertakings that gave rise to implied contracts and enforceable promises. Consequently, preemption is not in play.”

As to United’s argument that a window seat only means a location next to the fuselage, Judge Donato wrote: “The points are not well taken.”

How to avoid a windowless window seat

While some airlines do now proactively annotate their online seat maps with which window seats don’t actually come with a window, the same can’t be said of most carriers.

There are, however, some other ways to avoid this pitfall, and perhaps the most accurate is using the independent seat map website Aerolopa. Simply select the airline you are flying with and then the aircraft type you will be flying on, and it pulls up a detailed seat map.

In the case of United’s Boeing 737-800 fleet, the seat map clearly shows a missing window at row 11 and only a partial view from row 12.

The one problem with Aerolopa is that you first need to know what aircraft type you will be flying on. This is usually indicated on the airline’s own online seat booking tool, although bear in mind that the aircraft type could be swapped right up to the departure time.