The Transportation and Justice departments have sued Southwest Airlines for allegedly operating two chronically delayed flights during the spring and summer of 2022.
Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation levied a fine for chronic delays against Frontier Airlines.
The Southwest lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, requests the airline be fined the maximum amount allowed under the law for each violation.
The DOT defines chronically delayed flights as those that arrive more than 30 minutes late more than half of the time for more than four consecutive months. Such results can be cited for unrealistic scheduling, which the DOT has the authority to punish as an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive business practice.
In its lawsuit, the DOT said that Southwest flights between Chicago and Oakland, Calif., and between Baltimore and Cleveland were each chronically delayed from April 2022 through August 2022.
The lawsuit states that Southwest is liable for up to $37,377 per day for each violation.
“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 traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the complaint reads.
Southwest’s response to the suit
In a Wednesday afternoon email, Southwest said it was disappointed that the Transportation Department chose to file the suit.
“Since DOT issued its Chronically Delayed Flight policy in 2009, Southwest has operated more than 20 million flights with no other CDF violations,” the airline said. “Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years. In 2024, Southwest led the industry by completing more than 99% of its flights without cancellation.”
Taking punitive action for chronically delayed flights is a new initiative for the DOT. The carrier levied its first such fine ever early this month: a $2 million action against JetBlue.
JetBlue agreed to the fine in a consent decree that said that it made that decision to avoid the expense and uncertainty of litigation.
Southwest, however, has chosen to take its chances in litigation, where it will be facing a DOT under new leadership. The tenure of DOT secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has taken a more punitive approach to airlines than previous secretaries, will leave office when the White House changes hands on Jan. 20.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the DOT, former congressman and Fox News commentator Sean Duffy, went before the Senate transportation committee Wednesday for a nomination hearing.
Frontier enters consent decree
Frontier Airlines, conversely, has chosen to enter a consent decree rather than risk a legal fight. The carrier will pay half of the $650,000 fine levied by the DOT. The other $325,000 will be forgiven if Frontier does not operate any chronically delayed flights in the next three years.
According to the consent decree, the airline operated a chronically delayed flight between St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Orlando from April to August of 2022. Frontier also operated chronically delayed flights from December 2022 to April 2023 on Atlanta-Phoenix and Orlando-Houston routes.
Frontier declined to comment.
According to the consent decree, Frontier contends that many of the cancellations were the result of events beyond the airline’s control, such as unpredictable wind patterns and unscheduled airport construction on the St. Thomas-Orlando route.
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