The Department of Transportation now says the lawsuit should never have been filed.
A Southwest Airlines 737 on final approach to Los Angeles International Airport. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | William Derrickson)
The Department of Transportation has dropped its lawsuit against Southwest over the airline’s allegedly chronic flight delays.
The department initiated the lawsuit in January under former President Joe Biden, but with the change in administrations, the case is no longer moving forward.
“This was a lawsuit that should have never been brought forward,” a DOT spokesperson told AirlineGeeks. “Southwest has remedied the underlying issues and USDOT will work with them fairly, not sue them for political gain.”
Reuters reported in March that the Justice Department was in talks with Southwest about resolving the lawsuit. The airline initially had until May 30 to respond to the DOT, but now won’t have to.
“We appreciate the DOT’s decision to abandon its lawsuit against Southwest, which we believe is the correct result in this case,” Southwest said in a statement.
The Biden-era Transportation Department, helmed by then-Secretary Pete Buttigieg, sued Southwest “for illegally operating multiple chronically delayed flights and disrupting passengers’ travel.”
The agency said the airline was hurting its customers and competition in the industry by promising flights that did not reflect actual departure and arrival times. Southwest was accused of running two chronically delayed flights, one between Chicago Midway International Airport and Oakland, California, and another between Baltimore and Cleveland. Each flight was chronically delayed for five straight months between April and August 2022, resulting in 180 disruptions for passengers.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimated that the airline was responsible for over 90% of the delays on those two routes.
Southwest said the flights highlighted by the DOT took place “years ago when the industry faced unprecedented challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and were delayed due to issues outside of Southwest’s control in numerous cases.”
The airline said it has made significant investments in its operations since then and improved reliability.
At the same time the DOT sued Southwest, it also fined Frontier for “operating multiple chronically delayed flights.”
Frontier was fined $650,000, but will only have to pay $325,000 if it does not have another chronically delayed flight in the next three years.
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