Southwest, Frontier chronically delayed flights, DOT says

Less than two weeks after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) penalized JetBlue airlines for “chronically delayed flights,” the regulator has taken action against two other airlines: Southwest and Frontier.

Southwest, the nation’s third-largest airline by passenger volume, is accused in a lawsuit filed by DOT of “illegally operating multiple chronically delayed flights and disrupting passengers’ travel.” 

The DOT considers flights chronically delayed if they travel the same route at least 10 times a month and are canceled or arrive more than 30 minutes late more than half of the time. Selling tickets for flights on routes whose travel have been chronically delayed for five consecutive months is considered an illegal unrealistic scheduling practice, the DOT says. 

DOT said its investigation shows that Southwest operated two chronically delayed flights – one between Chicago Midway and Oakland, Calif, and the other between Baltimore, MD, and Cleveland, Ohio. Each route was chronically delayed for five straight months from April to August 2022, leading to 180 disrupted flights, including cancellations and detours. 

DELAYED FLIGHTS HURT PASSENGERS, COMPETITORS

“Operating chronically delayed flights is an unrealistic scheduling practice and can harm both passengers and fair competition across the airline industry,” the DOT said. DOT is seeking maximum civil penalties from Southwest.

The DOT prohibits airlines from scheduling flights that reasonable people would believe won’t depart or arrive on time. If there’s a pattern of delayed flights on a particular route – regardless of the reason (weather, national airspace, security, etc.) – airlines are required to make adjustments.

Southwest pushed back on the allegations. “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 company said.

FRONTIER FINED FOR DELAYED FLIGHTS TOO 

Frontier, the nation’s eighth-largest airline by passenger volume, was fined $650,000 in civil penalties, with half to be paid to the U.S. Treasury and the other half to be suspended if the carrier does not have any more chronically delayed flights in the next three years. 

Frontier operated two chronically delayed flights, the DOT said, one between Atlanta and Phoenix and the other between Orlando and Houston. There were 63 flights on these routes between Dec. 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023, the DOT said.

Continuing to operate these chronically delayed flights “disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers, including those with connections,” the DOT said. “The civil penalty in this matter is intended, in part, to reflect that harm.”

Frontier said it received “very few” passenger complaints about these flights. However, it “significantly re-timed or discontinued these flights before receiving the DOT’s inquiries” about the chronic delays.

On Jan. 3, the DOT took its first-ever action for “unrealistic scheduling” against JetBlue, penalizing the nation’s seventh-largest airline $2 million over 145 chronically delayed flights in 2022 and 2023, with half of the money going to affected customers. 

The DOT said then that it was pursuing investigations into other airlines for unrealistic flight schedules.