The Department of Transportation filed a lawsuit on Wednesday Southwest Airlineson the grounds that the airline operated chronically delayed flights and imposed a superb Frontier Airlines for delayed flights.
The lawsuit follows a $2 million DOT superb JetBlue Airways because of comparable allegations.
The lawsuit and fines come at the top of the Biden administration's term, which has taken a tougher line on consumer protections than previous administrations.
The DOT said Southwest flights from Chicago Midway International Airport to Oakland, California, and from Baltimore to Cleveland arrived late nearly 200 times between April and August 2022.
The DOT said every flight was chronically delayed for five consecutive months and that Southwest was answerable for greater than 90% of the disruptions.
It defines a flight as chronically delayed whether it is flown at the least 10 times a month and is delayed by greater than half-hour greater than half of the time. Cancellations and diversions are included within the calculation.
“If an airline knows that a particular flight is consistently delayed, it is important that the airline adjust its schedule,” the DOT said in its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California. “But in many cases, Southwest has chosen not to make such adjustments and instead continues to market its flights with unrealistic schedules. As a result, Southwest has caused significant harm to its customers.”
In response, Southwest said it was “disappointed that the DOT has decided to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago.”
The airline said that because the DOT released its chronically delayed flights policy in 2009, the airline has operated greater than 20 million flights without violating the policy. “Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply unbelievable compared to our performance over the last 15 years,” Southwest said in an announcement.
Separately, the DOT fined budget airline Frontier $650,000 for operating chronically delayed flights. However, it added that $325,000 could be suspended if the airline didn’t operate repeatedly delayed flights over the following three years. Frontier declined to comment.
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