The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has sued Southwest Airlines for allegedly operating numerous “chronically delayed” flights in violation of federal laws prohibiting deceptive practices.
The agency filed the suit in United States District Court for the Northern District of California on 15 January.
That same day, the DOT separately fined Frontier Airlines $650,000 for chronically delayed flights, after fining JetBlue Airways on 3 January for the same violation.
Though the DOT is just acting now, the airlines had operated the flights in question several years ago, a period during which US carriers were particularly struggling with operational disruptions caused by factors including computer issues and staff shortages.
But the DOT says airlines must not continue operating flights that they should know will be repeatedly and significantly late.
“When an airline knows that a particular flight is consistently late, it is essential that the airline adjusts its schedule,” says the DOT’s lawsuit against Dallas-based Southwest. “On many occasions, Southwest has chosen not to make such adjustments, and instead has continued to market its flights using unrealistic schedules. By doing so, Southwest has caused significant harm to its customers.”
Southwest says it “is disappointed that DOT chose to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago… Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years”.
US regulations define chronically delayed flights as those operated at least 10 times monthly that arrive more than 30min late more than half the time. The DOT says Southwest’s delayed flights violated US laws prohibiting unfair, deceptive or anticompetitive practices.
The lawsuit cites several specific Southwest flights that the DOT says violate law. It seeks civil penalties against the airline but does not specify a dollar amount.
For instance, Southwest flights 1029 and 1767 – both from Chicago to Oakland – were badly delayed more than half the time during the four months between April and July 2022. The average duration of the delays in those months ranged from 69 to 87min.
The DOT also says a Southwest flight from Baltimore to Cleveland arrived late more than half the time for at least five consecutive months in 2022, with “average monthly delays as high as 96 minutes”.
“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers,” says the lawsuit.
The DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection began investigating Southwest’s late flights in October 2022.
Separately, the DOT in a 15 January order fined Frontier $650,000 for allegedly operating chronically late flights. That order says Denver-based Frontier’s flights from Atlanta to Phoenix and from Orlando to Houston were chronically late between December 2022 and April 2023, as was a flight St Thomas to Orlando in 2022.
Frontier did not respond to a request for comment.
Also, on 3 January the DOT fined JetBlue $2 million, saying it operated 145 chronically delayed flights between June 2022 and November 2023.
