DOT’s abandonment of Southwest litigation will leave passengers worse off
Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829
Washington, DC — Last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) quietly dropped its historic lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, which had originally been filed over the carrier’s unrealistic scheduling. The litigation would have been the first time an airline attempted to defend its chronic delays in court.
“DOT’s decision to drop its lawsuit against Southwest will leave passengers worse off,” said NCL CEO Sally Greenberg. “Ignoring law violations just because the offender is a corporation is not a healthy or sustainable policy. The Department’s abandonment of the litigation sends a message to travelers around the globe that our government is more interested in protecting powerful airlines than the flying public.”
DOT’s original complaint cited Southwest’s own data submitted to the agency, highlighting nearly 150 flights that violated federal law prohibiting unrealistically scheduled routes. For example, in one of the months listed in the complaint, Southwest’s statistics showed that 22 out of 26 trips made by Flight 1614 between Baltimore, Maryland, and Cleveland, Ohio, did not arrive on time, with an average delay of 66 minutes.
The now-withdrawn lawsuit appropriately stated that “[h]olding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans.”
The federal prohibition on unrealistic scheduling has been on the books since 1957. Yet, airlines had not been held accountable for violations until Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, who brought fines against JetBlue and Frontier, and the now-abandoned lawsuit against Southwest.
Further reading:
- NCL applauds DOT’s historic actions to require realistic airline scheduling
- NCL applauds DOT advancement of delay compensation rules
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About the National Consumers League (NCL)
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.
