The Trump administration has dropped a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Southwest Airlines over allegations the Dallas-based carrier operated chronically delayed flights for months on end.
In January 2025, the Department of Transportation filed a lawsuit in a California district court against Southwest Airlines, demanding the carrier pay $2.1 million in fines over the continually delayed flights.
The suit was filed in the dying days of Joe Biden’s Presidency as his administration sought to create a legacy of being a champion of consumer rights, especially when it came to advocating for airline passengers.
The DOT had already managed to convince JetBlue and Frontier to accept big fines over the issue of chronically delayed flights, but Southwest challenged the proposed fine and was promptly sued by Biden administration officials.
What is a ‘chronically delayed’ flight?
At the heart of the lawsuit was a little-known law that was designed to stop airlines from operating overly ambitious schedules with little hope of flights arriving at their destinations on time.
A ‘chronically delayed’ flight is one that arrives late at its destination by at least 30 minutes more than half of the time over a period of five months. A flight is regarded as ‘chronically delayed’ regardless of the reason for the delay.
The DOT has long had the power to fine airlines up to $40,272 for each violation of the ‘chronically delayed flight’ rule, although it wasn’t until late 2024 that the department’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection decided to start flexing its muscles over the issue.
What accusations did the DOT make against Southwest?
In its lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, the DOT accused the airline of operating a series of chronically delayed flights. For example:
- In April 2022, Southwest flight 1029 from Chicago to Oakland arrived late on 19 of 25 trips by an average of over an hour.
- In June 2022, Southwest flight 1767 from Baltimore to Cleveland arrived late by an average of 87 minutes on 19 of 26 trips.
Rather than adjusting its flight schedules to mitigate the risk of continuing delays, the DOT accused Southwest of continuing with a pattern of ‘unrealistic scheduling’ which “harmed thousands of passengers.”
JetBlue and Frontier have already paid their fines
JetBlue became the first ever US-based airline to be slapped with a massive fine for operating unrealistic flight schedules under the ‘chronically delayed flight’ rule in January.
Rather than going to court, JetBlue reached a consent order with the DOT, agreeing to pay $2 million in fines and compensation over the issue.
A couple of weeks later, Frontier Airlines reached its own consent order with the DOT for a series of chronically delayed flights, accepting a civil penalty of $650,000.
Why has the DOT dropped its lawsuit against Southwest?
On Friday, attorneys acting on behalf of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told the San Francisco court that the DOT was dismissing its case against Southwest, but the agency did not provide any reason for its decision.
There have been no federal submissions to suggest that Southwest has reached a consent order with the DOT.
For its part, Southwest had yet to respond to the January 15 lawsuit, having won an extension to submit a formal response to the DOT’s case.
What is the future of airline passenger rights?
With just weeks to go before President Trump was to be inaugurated in January 2025, the outgoing Biden administration made a sudden push to improve airline passenger rights, although there was never any certainty that the incoming administration would keep these policies.
Perhaps one of the most impactful policies was the potential introduction of guaranteed compensation for passengers hit by delays that are within an airline’s control.
Similar to European and Canadian passenger rights laws, the US law could have provided passengers the right to claim more than $600 if their flight was delayed by three hours or more.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, airlines have already appealed to Duffy and senior officials to dump the proposals.
