Category - True crime
Federal Government Sues Southwest Over ‘Chronic’ ‘Unlawful’ Conduct
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco court against Southwest Airlines over “unlawful, chronic flight delays,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced in a Jan. 15 statement.
“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,” Buttigieg said. “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 [DOT] is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”
In its announcement of the lawsuit, the department lambasted “chronically delayed flights” as an "unrealistic scheduling practice” that negatively impacts “both passengers and fair competition across the airline industry.” DOT is seeking maximum civil penalties from Southwest.
During its investigation, the department discovered that the budget airline ran two itineraries—one operated between Chicago’s Midway International and Oakland, CA; and another from Baltimore to Cleveland—which were delayed a combined 180 times between April and August 2022. DOT guidelines dictate that “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.” Each of the affected schedules was “chronically delayed for five straight months.”
Under federal law, airlines are prohibited from advertising or “promising” itineraries which are not reflective of the accurate departure and arrival times. “Unrealistic scheduling is considered an unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practice that disrupts passengers’ travel plans, denies them reliable scheduling information, and allows airlines to unfairly capture business from competitors by misleading consumers,” DOT said before taking direct aim at Southwest. “Continuing to market a flight that has been chronically delayed for more than four consecutive months is one form of unrealistic scheduling.”
Southwest submitted data to DOT which was in turn analyzed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). BTS found that Southwest was directly responsible for over 90 percent of the service disruptions which plagued the two routes.