Airlines collectively paid out $600 million in flight refunds owed to Americans after investigations from the Department of Transportation, the secretary announced Monday, and those airlines were also fined $7.25 million for the delay.

What You Need To Know

  • Airlines collectively paid out $600 million in flight refunds owed to Americans after investigations from the Department of Transportation, the secretary announced Monday

  • Those airlines were also fined $7.25 million for the delay in refunding customers whose flights were cancelled or significantly changed

  • The department has received a slew of complaints from airline customers since the beginning of the pandemic, especially about flight delays and cancellations, Secretary Pete Buttigieg said

  • The airlines fined by DOT include Frontier, Air India, TAP Portugal, Aeromexico, El Al and Avianca

The department has received a slew of complaints from airline customers since the beginning of the pandemic, especially about flight delays and cancellations, Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on a call with reporters Monday – but some were particularly egregious about delays in paying people back.

“When Americans buy a ticket on an airline, we expect to get to our destination safely, reliably and affordably. And our job is to hold anyone accountable for these expectations, many of which are a matter of law and regulation,” he said.

The airlines fined by DOT include Frontier, Air India, TAP Portugal, Aeromexico, El Al and Avianca.

Frontier, for example, paid out $222 million in refunds and was fined a $2.2 million penalty for delays in payment. 

The airline had changed its threshold of when a flight change warrants a refund, but they applied it to flights booked before the change. That led the department to investigate based on complaints.

“I can certainly tell you that Frontier would not have provided these refunds to tens of thousands of passengers if DOT had not been involved,” said Blaine Workie, Assistant General Counsel for the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection.

The fines for the airlines were ordered as of Monday, Workie added, but the $600 million in refunds to customers had either already been paid out or offered to flyers. 

Aeromexico, Workie said, which was ordered to pay out $13.6 million, had an internal policy of not refunding customers for 12 months. Other request delays often stretched over 100 days. She said the actions announced Monday reflect the department’s ability to take action if other companies do the same.

Secretary Buttigieg had made it a priority this year to tighten up airlines’ expectations around refunds and other customer service, as well as his department’s enforcement of those policies.

DOT launched a dashboard in September to lay out what each airline has promised to offer; free rebooking, for example, or a meal voucher for any delay longer than three hours.

“The bottom line is that as people get ready to fly this holiday season, we want passengers to know that USDOThas their back, of course when it comes to safety, but also when it comes to meeting these important customer service standards,” Buttigieg said Monday.

The department fields tens of thousands of complaints, he added, to determine whether an airline should be investigated. As of now, no other U.S. airline is under review for delayed refunds.

The Transportation Department has also proposed a rule on airline refunds that would proactively inform customers about when they’re owed a refund, plus define the term “significant” when it applies to flight delays.