The Department of Transport (DoT) has announced a lawsuit against Southwest airlines for “for illegally operating multiple chronically delayed flights and disrupting passengers’ travel”. The DoT also announced that Frontier Airlines would be fined $650,000 ($325,000 to be paid to the U.S. Treasury and the remaining $325,000 to be suspended if the carrier does not operate any chronically delayed flights in the next three years).
The DoT considers a flight to be chronically delayed if it is flown at least 10 times per month and arrives more than 30 minutes later more than 50% of the time. The full court filing can be found here.
Another thing most people don’t usually mention below is if there’s a particular time of day when they fly. With Southwest, the fewest problems are with the earliest flights of the day, since Southwest don’t tend to fly red-eyes, and thus that plane was not out of the area overnight. The later in the day, the more likely problems are, especially if there is bad weather somewhere in the country, because of Southwest typically flying point-to-point-to-point all around the country, which other airlines don’t do.
That might be one difference between people who regularly have problems with Southwest and people who very rarely have problems with Southwest.
Another difference that some, but not all, people mention is where they start most of their flights. Some regions of the country that are further away from bad weather might have fewer of their Southwest flights delayed/cancelled, while other regions might have more. And it isn’t necessarily based on closeness, it’s based on Southwest’s complex point-to-point-to-point flying routes.
So you can’t even start to figure out why some people have lots of problems with Southwest delays/cancellations and other people don’t without such details, because of the unusual nature of how Southwest flies planes around the country.
In the summer of 2023 I Was flying on southwest from STL to SEA. On the drive to the airport, My flight was cancelled. When I arrived at the front desk, the only choice they gave me was to rebook the flight for early the next day. Because it would mess up my schedule, I was forced to cancel the flight entirely to get my money back. Then rebook it for double the price on a different airline.
And no, the weather was not bad. There weren’t even clouds in the sky at the time we were due to fly out.
Then on our way back to STL, we had a layover in Denver. We got stuck in the airport for 6 HOURS!!! we got home at 6am instead of the original time of 11pm the night before.
I still have some southwest credits left over. And once they’re used up, I will never pay my own money to fly on them ever again. And if I do fly on them again, it will be reserved for return trips only where I don’t care if I get back late.
Meanwhile delta and AA have never been late to that degree. And I’ve been flying with them since the early 2000s.
The ONLY good thing Southwest did was give me another flight credit for the hotel stay I had to buy.
If you had good experience with southwest- congratulations. You are one of the lucky ones. But not everyone has.
As I explained in more detail in a post below, Southwest flies point-to-point-to-point all around the country, while the other big airlines fly hub-to-spoke and back, so because of this Southwest is much more subject to bad weather in just one part of the country affecting very many of its flights, while with other airlines bad weather only in the part of the country where the hub-to-spoke flight is tends to affect them.
I fly Southwest weekly and find their on-time performance to be the best right now compared to any time since the Covid recovery started. Would be great to see the FAA also held accountable. There are countless delays at EWR due to air traffic volume and the lack of controllers to manage the airspace to meet demand.
How do you know that is why the flights are delayed? I hope you don’t take the pilots word for it…
I guess I’m lucky. I’ve flown Southwest a number of times (LGA-HOU and return) and have never had a significant delay. Last time it took a long time for the luggage to appear on the carousel, but I think that’s a function of the airport people, not the airlines.
Man, we really need an EU261, APPR equivalent in the US, so that we can get paid when the airlines play these games, chronically delay or cancel flights, and/or fail to adequately staff and maintain their aircraft. C’mon folks, this isn’t hard.
We know what’s coming instead: De-regulation. Purging of civil servants who don’t bend the knee to the new god-king. Claims of ‘efficiency’ but really just more corruption. It sucks. And no one here, unless you’re a billionaire, actually benefits.
You seem to be suffering from TDS. You cant purge civil servants, you cant even get them back working in the office 5 days a week. Airlines are heavily regulated by statute. There wasn’t airline deregulation in Trumps first term and I don’t see anything more in the second. Aviation isn’t a priority compared to immigration, tariffs,…
These tariffs you mention, if truly implemented, will make Americans fly less. Surely tariffs will make the economy stronger! Ha-ha
Guess you never heard of a RIF…
And so it begins…
https://x.com/PressSec/status/1881888120536535174?mx=2
Brian seems to be suffering from the delusion that statutes matter. lol
Only $325k??? Why make the effort? Not even a slap on the wrist.
What? They fined 650k? 650k is spent on their CEO’s golf club lunches every year!!!!!
They left my daughter on Dec 10th stranded in Nashville overnight AND was a connection to her final destination. Long story short, I asked for a refund and they denied me. They said that since she accepted the two 15.00 meal vouchers that my refunded was not needed. Also all rooms for hotels they had held back were full. So she stayed awake until her next flight out in the late morning. She did not fall asleep and was miserable.
Soooooo, too bad that the CONSUMER isn’t getting any of these fees the lovely government is fining them. Disgusting!
The new DOT’s Automatic Refund Rule doesn’t cover rebooked flights. America always votes for corporations to do whatever they want. Maybe you should start voting for people that represent your interests. If you’re a sad pathetic drunk that spreads propaganda and is a warmonger, Pete Hegseth will represent your interests.
This is exactly the reason I stopped flying Southwest years ago. They continually overbook flights and are constantly delayed. I know there are SWA loyalists out there; but IMO, they run a subpar product.
It’s obvious they actively work to shuffle passengers around to fill every seat; but when you are intentionally disrupting travel, to squeeze profits, you deserve to be called out.
The overbooking isn’t necessarily the main cause. There are two other big main causes, which can affects almost all flights, even the far-from-fully-booked ones:
1. Unlike other airlines which fly between hubs and spokes, Southwest doesn’t really use true hubs, and mostly flies point to point to point, all around the country. So more of their planes are affected by local conditions such as weather SOMEWHERE in the country, where for hub-and-spoke airlines that only affects a far fewer percentages of their flights if the problem is only in one section of the country.
2. Unlike other airlines, Southwest has a “best bet” rather than “average bet” of arrival-to-departure scheduling. So because of this, more of their flights are actually going to be delayed than if they had more time allotted between arrival and departure.
Every airline sucks these days, minus Delta. Southwest certainly has lost its “underdog” charm of the 90’s and early 2000’s but at least they try to be different.
That’s because the race to the bottom with “basic economy” has prompted more disruptive behaviors from passengers, and none of the airlines have really addressed it.
Mostly because Airlines don’t want to be seen as “insensitive” against a certain group of people.
drunk karens?
Oh, no, definitely Delta as well.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of aviation when the greatest country on Earth doesn’t have a single good airline. To be clear, I fly enough that I’ve had status (Platinum, Gold, A-List) with three different airlines over the last four years (none received from credit cards, either). Suffice to say, domestic travel has become a fluster cuck and a truly miserable experience.
And unfortunately I’m old enough to recall when it wasn’t like this.
I’m not even old enough to recall the “good old days”. My first flight was on ValuJet in 1997. The plane was comfortable and the people flying were nice. I remember when airlines like Continental used to care about customer service. I remember a whole airline (Midwest) whose sole marketing was they actually gave a shit about you. Hell I remember when JetBlue gave you free bags. Those were the days.
Southwest isn’t an underdog. It is the largest domestic airline in the US. When you become so large, you take on the traits of a legacy carrier.
The fact that these two airlines were fined and sued, and none the big 3 who the government has gone all out to protect and provide cover for, is very telling. Go after them all, or don’t go after any of them. The merger if the mainlines is why air travel is miserable right now. Either break em up, or let JetBlue and Spirit merge.
You’re missing the fact that these two airlines were fined/sued over delayed flights.
Read my reply above about the big reason Southwest flights truly are delayed more than most other airlines.
The DOT can’t sue or fine an airline without a valid reason. It has to be a violation of established rules.
So what valid factual rule violation do you want them to fine/sue the big 3 which are NOT delayed anywhere near as much as Southwest?
Unless you’re familiar with all those rules, you can’t come up with a valid reason to sue another airline.
Just because you feel that an airline should be sued doesn’t mean that there is a valid reason for them to be sued.
Hey Merrick – Chill out. You’ll be out of office come Monday.
My dudes, who cares what party these folks are with—we should be getting paid when airlines fail us. Please, by all means, whoever can pass a bill into law that guarantees standard payouts (like a couple hundred bucks would be nice) when they’re 3+ hours late—they get my vote. And no, it doesn’t bankrupt anyone. Be more punctual, ya won’t owe anything to anyone.