Southwest Airlines has been hit with a record-setting $140 million high-quality for just about shitting its pants in the course of the 2022 vacation journey season. The civil penalty leveraged towards Southwest is 30 occasions bigger than any Department of Transportation airline high-quality in historical past, in accordance with an announcement from the DOT.
The DOT additionally mentioned it could require Southwest to begin a $90 million program that’ll problem a $75 flight credit score to any passenger whose arrival is delayed greater than 3 hours when it’s the airline’s fault — that features mechanical points.
“Today’s action sets a new precedent and sends a clear message: if airlines fail their passengers, we will use the full extent of our authority to hold them accountable,” Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Transportation Secretary, mentioned within the assertion.
For those that don’t keep in mind, operational failures on the a part of Southwest and an enormous winter storm led to about 16,900 flights being canceled over the Christmas vacation in 2022. It led to about two million passengers being stranded.
The $140 million high-quality provides to the almost $600 million in refunds and reimbursements the airline has beforehand handed out due to the snafu. Officials say they’re going to make use of nearly all of the high-quality to compensate prospects impacted by future Southwest flight cancelations and different delays, which we all know are coming. It is Southwest, in any case.
Transportation officers mentioned their investigation of the journey nightmare “examining tens of thousands of pages documents, conducting several multi-day, in-person audits and site visits at Southwest’s headquarters, reviewing thousands of consumer complaints, and consulting with various third parties, such as airports.”
It discovered that the airline violated client safety legal guidelines on offering customer support, immediate flight-status notifications and immediate refunds, in accordance with the DOT launch.
“Taking care of passengers is not just the right thing to do — it’s required, and this penalty should put all airlines on notice to take every step possible to ensure a meltdown like this never happens again,” Mayor Pete mentioned.
In a press launch, Southwest mentioned it has “learned from the event, and now can shift its entire focus to the future.”
“We have spent the past year acutely focused on efforts to enhance the Customer Experience with significant investments and initiatives that accelerate operational resiliency, enhance cross-team collaboration and bolster overall preparedness for winter operations,” Bob Jordan, Southwest Airlines President and Chief Executive Officer mentioned in an announcement.
Source: jalopnik.com