Airline Risk Calculator (ARC)

The US Department of Transportation has slapped Southwest Airlines with a civil penalty of $140 million, having ruled that the carrier violated numerous consumer protection laws during the 2022 winter holiday season when it cancelled 16,900 flights and stranded more than two million passengers. The fine is 30 times larger than any previous DOT penalty for consumer protection violations, the department says. The majority of the fine will fund compensation for Southwest passengers whose flights might one day be cancelled or delayed significantly. The Dallas-based carrier had previously been fined $600 million by the DOT for the flight cancellations during the 2022 Christmas-New Year's Eve period, proceeds of which went toward passenger refunds and reimbursement. "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," Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg states, adding: "This penalty should put all airlines on notice to take every step possible to ensure that a meltdown like this never happens again." The department in January 2023 opened an investigation into the causes behind Southwest's thousands of flight cancellations in December 2022. In particular, the investigation would look into whether the carrier's scheduling of flights during the holiday season was "unrealistic", which under federal law is considered an unfair and deceptive practice. While the investigation ultimately found that Southwest failed to provide adequate customer assistance during the operational breakdown, and additionally failed to provide refunds in a prompt and proper manner, it did not lead to a definitive ruling on the carrier's scheduling practices. "As part of this settlement, DOT is closing its unrealistic scheduling investigation without making a finding as its goal is to obtain quick relief for the public," the department stated on 18 December. "Today’s penalty will deter airlines from engaging in any unfair and deceptive practices against consumers. DOT is continuing to monitor airlines to identify instances of potential unrealistic scheduling." Southwest notes in its acknowledgement of the settlement with the federal government that it "shares with the DOT the goal of delivering the highest standard of service to the travelling public". "[We are] grateful to have reached a consumer-friendly settlement that both credits past compensation that went above and beyond requirements for customers and incorporates a future commitment for Southwest customer care with a new industry-leading compensation policy." It adds that during 2023 it has improved its customer care and operational resiliency. "We had a really tough last week of December last year – there's just no way around that," Southwest chief executive Bob Jordan said on 14 December at a Wings Club event in New York, adding: "It was very tough on our customers, it was obviously very tough on our employees." Jordan pledges that an operational disruption like the one suffered during last December's winter storm Elliott by Southwest customers and employees "will never happen again". "[During this year] we looked at over 300 projects every single week from more de-icing pads and trucks and more staffing to sophisticated technology around giving pilots [at] the airport very sophisticated, real-time dynamic weather [information] to understand holdover times between the de-icing and take-off." Jordan adds that this year Southwest has developed in-house software that "solves the rerouting of the aircraft together with rerouting of our crews" amid "irregular operations".