A man yesterday sued Northwest Airlines in connection with his aborted trips to Tokyo and Seattle as a result of the airline agent’s “misleading statements” concerning Japan’s immigration requirements.<\/p>\n
Iosefatu Tuigamala filed the civil action in the Superior Court against Northwest for alleged violation of the Consumer Protection Act.<\/p>\n
The case, represented by lawyer Gregory J. Koebel, stemmed from the airline employee’s statement that Iosefatu, who holds a Samoan passport, did not need a visa to enter Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Iosefatu bought two sets of plane tickets for himself and his wife, a US passport holder from American Samoa, last March. The tickets covered their flights from Saipan to Tokyo, and from Tokyo to Seattle.<\/p>\n
The couple were traveling to Japan to obtain a US. visa for Iosefatu at the US embassy in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
On the day of the couple’s departure to Tokyo, Iosefatu learned from a Northwest check-in attendant at Saipan International Airport that their reservation had been changed to allow only an overnight stopover in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, the Northwest agent told Iosefatu that he did not need a visa to get into Japan, and that he could obtain a US visa at Narita Airport in one day, and leave for Seattle the next day.<\/p>\n
The airline agent then issued him a boarding pass.<\/p>\n
However, upon arriving at the Narita Airport, Iosefatu was stopped by Japanese immigration and denied entry into Japan.<\/p>\n
He and his wife were allowed only to go to the airport hotel to wait for the flight to Seattle the next day.<\/p>\n
But because Iosefatu did not have a US visa, he was not allowed to board the Seattle-bound plane the following day.<\/p>\n
Upon inquiry, Iosefatu was told by a Japanese immigration officer that he could not obtain a US visa at Narita Airport.<\/p>\n
His wife went on to fly to Seattle, while Iosefatu was told to fly back to Saipan. He was made to pay for his return ticket to Saipan.<\/p>\n
Iosefatu wanted to return to Saipan right away, but was not allowed to board the plane on a scheduled flight that day. Instead, he was made to stay one more night at the airport hotel.<\/p>\n
While paying for his Saipan flight, Northwest confiscated the coupon for Iosefatu’s Tokyo-Seattle flight segment without refunding him the difference.<\/p>\n
“Airlines, as a matter of policy, almost universally refund the full amount of a ticket purchased by a passenger when the airline mistakenly allows the passenger to board without proper documentation,” the complaint stated.<\/p>\n
Iosefatu is seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial, aside from attorney’s fee, liquidated damages and punitive damages of no less than $50,000. (MCM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man yesterday sued Northwest Airlines in connection with his aborted trips to Tokyo and Seattle as a result of the airline agent’s “misleading statements” concerning Japan’s immigration requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}