The Department of Transportation announced Wednesday it was suing Southwest Airlines for chronically delayed flights.
“As part of our commitment to supporting passenger rights and fairness in the market for airline travel, we are suing Southwest Airlines for disrupting passengers’ travel with unlawful chronic flight delays,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times. Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the Department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”
According to the DOT, Southwest operated two flights that, between them, experienced 180 disruptions between April and August 2022. The flights operated between Chicago Midway International Airport and Oakland, California, and between Baltimore and Cleveland.
Data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that Southwest was directly responsible for more than 90% of the delays that occurred on those two routes during the period discussed in the lawsuit. The DOT said that its rules “provide airlines adequate time to fix their schedule after a flight becomes chronically delayed in order to avoid illegal unrealistic scheduling,” but that Southwest did not address the problem.
The airplane that was used for Southwest Airlines’ inaugural flight to Hawaii from Oakland International Airport was a Boeing 737-800.
The DOT said in a news release that unrealistic scheduling is “unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive” and that it disrupts travelers’ plans and allows airlines to capture business by misleading consumers.
“Continuing to market a flight that has been chronically delayed for more than four consecutive months is one form of unrealistic scheduling,” the release said. “Under DOT rules, a flight is chronically delayed if it is flown at least 10 times a month and arrives more than 30 minutes late more than 50 percent of the time. Cancellations and diversions are included as delays within this calculation.”
The DOT said it would seek “maximum civil penalties” from the lawsuit but was not immediately able to provide a specific dollar amount.
What to know: Southwest Airlines offers a different experience. Here’s how it works.
The release also announced an enforcement action against Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights.
The ultra-low-cost carrier was being fined $650,000, but the DOT said it would only have to pay $325,000 immediately, and the remainder would be forgiven if the airline did not operate any chronically delayed flights in the next three years.
Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the lawsuit.
“Since DOT issued its Chronically Delayed Flight (CDF) policy in 2009, Southwest has operated more than 20 million flights with no other CDF violations. Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” the statement said. “In 2024, Southwest led the industry by completing more than 99% of its flights without cancellation.”
Frontier Airlines declined to comment.
JetBlue was hit by its own $2 million fine from the DOT for chronically delayed flights earlier this month.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Southwest Airlines hit with DOT lawsuit over chronic delays