Two proposed class actions filed in US federal courts on 3 and 4 November 2026 allege that major US airlines shared non-public shopping and pricing data through the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) and its subsidiary 3Victors, and that this kept domestic fares higher than they would otherwise have been12. In the case filed on 4 November in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, passengers Ashley Ward and Gregory Morris name American, Delta, United, Southwest, Alaska, Hawaiian and JetBlue, together with ATPCO and 3Victors13. In a complaint dated a day earlier, four other passengers make similar claims in the Eastern District of Virginia against ATPCO, 3Victors and five airlines24. The claims are allegations made by the plaintiffs; no court has ruled on them.

Who is suing whom?

The Washington case, Ward v. Airline Tariff Publishing Company, has case number 2:26-cv-042893. According to Courthouse News, Ward bought tickets from Southwest and Morris bought tickets from United, and both say they paid artificially inflated fares1. They are represented by Steve W. Berman of the law firm Hagens Berman and seek to represent classes of people who bought domestic airline tickets1. Law360 described the case as a proposed class action filed in federal court in Washington state on 4 November5. The Washington complaint is not freely available, as the docket offers it only for purchase on PACER, so the details of the Washington case in this article come from the docket, Courthouse News and Law360315.

The Virginia case, Brown v. Airline Tariff Publishing Company, was filed in Alexandria under case number 1:26-cv-03646 by Clinton Brown, Megan Fragola, Joshua Sauberman and Rebekka Lien, represented by Levi & Korsinsky24. It names ATPCO, 3Victors, American, Delta, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue, and treats Hawaiian Airlines as part of Alaska from 18 September 20242. United is not a defendant in that case. According to the complaint, United's contract of carriage purports to require passengers to give notice of a dispute and allow 60 days for a response before suing; the plaintiffs dispute that the requirement is valid, but say they intend to notify United of the dispute and have not named it as a defendant in this action2.

What do the plaintiffs allege?

Both complaints centre on products run by 3Victors, a data company that ATPCO acquired in late 202312. Iris is described as a shopping data repository, and PriceEye as an analytics tool that lets airlines monitor competitors' fares and pricing changes16. Shopping data is the record of what travellers search for and the offers they receive in response, whether or not they book2. According to the complaints, airlines contribute shopping data to Iris in exchange for access to PriceEye12. The Virginia complaint says the data is drawn from the airlines' own systems and that contributors receive enriched competitive data in return2. Both complaints quote 3Victors as saying that participation in Iris works on the principle that "the more you contribute, the more you receive"12.

The Virginia complaint also points to DemandView, a 3Victors product that it says was launched on 5 October 2026 and draws on more than 1.4 billion daily search records to show where demand is building before it appears in bookings2. The plaintiffs describe the alleged arrangement as a hub-and-spoke conspiracy in which ATPCO is the hub and, together with its subsidiary 3Victors, administers the alleged scheme. They say the arrangement began no later than 25 July 20232. They allege that shared demand signals and close monitoring of rivals' prices reduce the incentive to discount2. The complaint states that the case does not challenge airlines watching each other's published fares; it challenges the alleged pooling of non-public data2.

To support its claim of higher fares, the Virginia complaint cites an analysis of Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. According to the complaint, the passenger-weighted average one-way fare across 693 US routes rose 30.7%, from US$198.71 in the first quarter of 2022 to US$259.66 in the first quarter of 20262. The plaintiffs attribute that rise to the alleged arrangement2.

What are the plaintiffs asking for?

The Washington plaintiffs claim violations of federal antitrust law and want the court to block the information-sharing arrangement and award damages, Courthouse News reported1. The Virginia plaintiffs bring two counts under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits agreements that unreasonably restrain trade. The counts allege a conspiracy to raise and stabilise airfares and an unlawful exchange of competitively sensitive information2. They seek relief under the Clayton Act and propose a class of everyone in the United States who bought a domestic ticket from one of the airline defendants from 1 November 2022 onwards2.

The Virginia complaint does not put a figure on the damages, and Courthouse News did not report one for the Washington case21. The Virginia plaintiffs ask for damages in an amount to be determined at trial, trebled under Section 4 of the Clayton Act2. They also seek a permanent injunction barring the defendants from exchanging current or forward-looking non-public pricing, inventory or shopping data among competing airlines, whether through ATPCO, 3Victors, Iris, PriceEye, DemandView or any other means2.

How are airline fares set and filed?

According to ATPCO, each airline makes its own pricing decisions and expresses its fares, rules and products once through ATPCO, so that all sales channels apply them consistently7. According to the Virginia complaint, which quotes the company, ATPCO's database holds public, private and interline fare data from more than 440 airlines2. The complaint also says DemandView is offered as a dashboard or as a data feed for use in an existing revenue management system2.

The complaints focus on a newer layer of data. The Virginia complaint describes how ATPCO moved from filed fares into shopping data, including a data clean room for airlines announced in July 2023 and the purchase of 3Victors in December 20232. According to 3Victors, PriceEye draws on Iris, a repository that aggregates data from direct airline APIs, global distribution systems, online travel agencies, metasearch sites and web scraping. The company says the PriceEye dashboard offers competitive benchmarking, pricing alerts and anomaly detection6. In a December 2024 blog post, published before the lawsuits, ATPCO wrote that it "has no input into the prices individual airlines charge" and that "each airline makes its own pricing decisions"7.

Has ATPCO faced antitrust claims before?

Yes. On 21 December 1992 the US Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust suit against ATPCO and eight airlines, alleging that they had used the fare system to agree on fare increases and on the removal of discounts8. The department alleged that airlines had used first ticket dates to agree on fares before the public could buy them, and last ticket dates to negotiate the removal of discounts8. On the same day, it filed a proposed consent decree to settle the case against United and USAir8. According to the Virginia complaint, a judgment against United and USAir was entered in November 1993 and one against ATPCO and the other airlines in August 1994, and both expired after ten years2. ATPCO says it closed the loophole identified by the department and that the fix remains in its system7.

How concentrated is the US airline market?

The Virginia complaint describes the domestic market as highly concentrated and cites Bureau of Transportation Statistics figures for the twelve months to July 2026 that give Delta 17.9% of domestic revenue passenger miles, American 17.7%, United 17.2%, Southwest 17.1%, Alaska 7.1% and JetBlue 4.6%2. The Virginia plaintiffs argue that the alleged conspiracy is unlawful in itself (a so-called per se violation) or, in the alternative, unlawful under a quick-look analysis or under the rule of reason, which weighs anticompetitive effects against any justification2.

What happens next?

Both cases are at the earliest stage. The Washington docket shows only the complaint, and the Virginia docket shows the complaint and proposed summonses among its first entries34. Neither court has decided whether the cases can proceed as class actions. Courthouse News did not report a response from ATPCO, 3Victors or the airlines1. Our airline answers compare pilot selection and cadet programmes at individual airlines, and further airline coverage is in our airline news.