The federal government on Wednesday accused Southwest Airlines of harming passengers who flew on two routes in 2022 that were plagued by continued delays.
In the lawsuit, the Department of Transportation says it is seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over flights between Chicago and Oakland, California, and Baltimore and Cleveland airports that were chronically delayed for more than five months last year. Ta.
“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure flight schedules that provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the Department is prepared to go to court to ensure passenger protections.”
Airlines are prohibited from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Department of Transportation considers to be an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times per month and is delayed by at least 30 minutes on more than half of the flights.
Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it was “disappointed” that the department chose to file a lawsuit over a flight that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it has operated 20 million flights and had no other violations since the Department of Transportation established its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago.
“Compared to our performance over the past 15 years, claims that these two flights are unrealistic schedules have no credence,” Southwest Airlines said.
Last year, Southwest Airlines canceled less than 1% of its flights, but more than 22% arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to aviation data provider Cirium. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all saw a decrease in such delays.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In the statement, the government said 19 of 25 Southwest flights from Chicago to Oakland in April 2022 arrived late, with an average delay of more than an hour. Consistent delays continued into August of that year, averaging more than an hour. Another flight between Baltimore and Cleveland experienced average delays of 96 minutes per month during the same period. The department said in a statement that Southwest Airlines was responsible for more than 90% of the delays, not bad weather or air traffic control.
“Postponements of chronically delayed flights ignore consumers’ needs for reliable information about their flights’ actual arrival times and cause disruption to travel and other plans,” the department said in its lawsuit. , harming thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights.” .
The government announced that Southwest Airlines violated federal regulations 58 times in August 2022 after four months of delays. Each violation carries a civil penalty of up to $37,377, for a total of more than $2.1 million, according to the complaint.
The Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it has fined Frontier Airlines $650,000 for chronically delayed flights. Half of this amount will be paid to the Treasury, and the rest will be forgiven if airlines do not experience chronic flight delays over the next three years.
The department earlier this month ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similar delayed flights over a year-long period ending in November 2023, half of which was paid by passengers affected by the delays. The amount will be allocated to
