JetBlue has been sued in a proposed class action alleging it collects customers' personal data without consent and uses it to set ticket prices dynamically — a practice known as "surveillance pricing."
Filed late Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, the complaint — brought by New York resident Andrew Phillips — accuses JetBlue of secretly deploying tracking tools and passing user data along to outside vendors, whose software the airline then relies on to push fares higher. The filing quotes Phillips directly: "Consumers should not have to have their privacy rights violated to participate in [JetBlue's] digital rat race for airline tickets, which should cost the same for each similarly seated passenger."
JetBlue pushed back on the allegations, telling reporters in a prepared statement: "JetBlue does not use personal information or web browsing history to set individual pricing. Fares are determined by demand and seat availability, and all customers have access to the same fares on jetblue.com and our mobile app."
The suit points to an April 18 post on X $TWTR in which a traveler complained about a $230 single-day fare increase on a ticket they were trying to purchase for a funeral trip. When JetBlue's social media team replied by telling the passenger to try an incognito browser or clear their cache and cookies, the complaint seized on the response as an implicit admission that tracking influences pricing. The airline removed the post and later characterized it as an error by one employee, maintaining that the troubleshooting steps offered "would not have changed the airfares available for purchase."
Returning to the site after closing a search window causes fares to climb, the complaint further alleges — behavior the suit frames as evidence of real-time, data-driven price manipulation.
The suit asks for damages without specifying an amount, grounding its legal claims in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act — a federal anti-wiretapping statute — along with a pair of New York consumer protection measures.
The lawsuit comes amid broader scrutiny of airline pricing practices. Congressional scrutiny of airline pricing extends beyond this case: earlier this week, a pair of Democratic lawmakers pressed JetBlue with pointed questions about how it sets fares and whether personal data plays any role. Months earlier, in November, roughly two dozen members of Congress directed a comparable inquiry at Delta Air Lines, asking about its use of generative AI in fare-setting; Delta denied doing so.