Man to sue KLM, Delta and Lufthansa for $6 million

THE husband of a sickly, one-legged, obese American woman who died from kidney failure in Hungry after airline officials told her she was too fat to fly home will sue all airlines involved.

Lawyers for Janos Soltesz said he would sue KLM, Delta and Lufthansa for $6 million.

Vilma Soltesz, 56, died in Hungary on October 24. She weighed 193kg, had only one leg and used a wheelchair.

She had travelled with her husband of 33 years to Hungary on Delta and KLM airlines on September 17. 

The couple spent several weeks relaxing at a holiday house they owned in the Hungarian countryside. But when they decided to travel home, Mr Soltesz says Vilma was kicked off three flights and left unable to get home. 

 “He wants to know why his wife had to die because the airlines simply didn’t want to be inconvenienced,” Ostrov-Ronai, the lawyer representing Mr Soltesz  said.

“Very rarely do you have discrimination causing much more than humiliation and psychological damages, but in this instance, the discriminatory actions of the airlines led to something much more serious - Vilma’s death,” Mr Ronai said.

All three airlines said they could not properly board Vilma.

"All we wanted was to come back home to get her treatment," said Mr Soltesz, a Staten Island Ferry security guard. "I’m lonely now. Wherever I am going, I am just going alone. I am missing her a lot."