The U.S. Department of Transportation is suing Dallas-based Southwest Airlines for illegally operating multiple chronically delayed flights, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Between April and July of 2022, an investigation found one Southwest flight between Chicago Midway and Oakland, California was late between 59% and 76% of the time. The suit alleged Southwest did not adjust its schedule during that time.
The agency also said it found a similar pattern of delays on a flight between Baltimore and Cleveland, leading to chronic delays for five months. Both delayed flights resulted in more than 90% of disruptions for passengers between April and August 2022.
“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Southwest said it’s “disappointed” over the department’s suit for flights that occurred more than two years ago.
“Since DOT issued its Chronically Delayed Flight policy in 2009, Southwest has operated more than 20 million flights with no other CDF violations,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”
A chronically delayed flight means any domestic flight that is operated at least 10 times a month, and arrives more than 30 minutes late — including canceled flights — more than half the time during that month.
The transportation department also fined Frontier Airlines $650,000 for three chronically delayed flights between August of 2022 and April of 2023 in a complaint filed Wednesday. Of that, $325,000 in civil penalties are to be paid to the U.S. Treasury and the remaining $325,000 could be suspended if the carrier does not operate any chronically delayed flights in the next three years.
In response, Frontier said many of the delayed or cancelled flights were a result of “uncontrollable events,” according to court documents.
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