The Department of Transportation (DOT) is pursuing airlines over allegations they let down tens of thousands of passengers by operating chronically delayed flights for months on end, but Southwest Airlines is now fighting back over the hefty penalties being pursued by the Feds.
That fight could now land Southwest Airlines in a California district court where attorneys working for the DOT have just filed a $2.1 million lawsuit against the carrier after attempts to reach a consent order ended in failure.
The lawsuit relates to a little-known law that bans airlines from operating flights that consistently arrive late at their destination by 30 minutes or more, regardless of whether the reasons for the delays were under the airline’s control or not.
The rule was little known because aside from sending warning letters, until last year, the DOT had never enforced the law. That all changed in 2024 when the DOT suddenly put a slew of airlines on notice that they were being investigated over the issue.
So far, the DOT has reached consent orders with JetBlue and Frontier Airlines over allegations that they operated chronically delayed flights. Despite a slew of mitigating factors, the two airlines will have to pay a total of $2.65 million in civil penalties.
Frontier and JetBlue disagreed with the DOT’s findings but decided to reach a consent order with the government to settle the matter. Southwest, however, has yet to reach an out-of-court settlement with the DOT, and the airline says it is holding out on a “reasonable settlement.”
As a result, the two sides remain at loggerheads, and that’s resulted in the DOT suing Southwest for two ‘chronically delayed’ flights between Chicago and Oakland and between Baltimore and Cleveland from April to July 2022.
Under the chronically delayed flight regulations, Southwest should have identified the fact that flights were operating late more often than not and then made adjustments to its schedule to prevent “significant harm” to passengers.
The regulations give airlines four months to identify and then change an “unrealistic schedule,” but in Southwest’s case, the DOT claims the airline continued operating these chronically delayed flights on at least 58 occasions.
Each flight represents a violation of the regulations, and each violation carries a maximum penalty of $37,377.
Unsurprisingly, Southwest is less than impressed with the DOT’s litigious approach to resolving the dispute.
“Southwest is disappointed that DOT chose to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“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 airline explained.
So far, we know of three airlines that have been accused of chronically delayed flight violations. Don’t be surprised if more airlines are announced soon.
