JetBlue Airways must pay a $2 million fine to the federal government for chronically delayed flights, the U.S. Transportation Department announced Friday. It is the first time the agency has fined an airline for systemic flight delays.
“Illegal chronic flight delays make flying unreliable for travelers," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "Today’s action puts the airline industry on notice that we expect their flight schedules to reflect reality."
Unrealistic scheduling is “an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice that disrupts passengers’ travel plans, denies them reliable scheduling information and allows airlines to unfairly capture business from competitors by misleading consumers,” the DOT said.
The agency's rules say a flight is considered chronically delayed if it’s flown 10 times or more per month and arrives more than 30 minutes late at least 50% of the time.
DOT said JetBlue operated four chronically delayed flights 145 times or more between June 2022 and November 2023. The agency said it warned JetBlue about delays on its flight route between John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and that it operated three additional chronically delayed flight routes between Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida, and JFK, and between Fort Lauderdale and Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
"We appreciate how important it is to our customers to arrive to their destinations on-time and work very hard to operate our flights as scheduled," JetBlue told Spectrum News in a statement. "Over the past two years, JetBlue has invested tens of millions of dollars to reduce flight delays, particularly related to ongoing air traffic control challenges in our largest markets in the Northeast and Florida.
"While we’ve reached a settlement to resolve this matter regarding four flights in 2022 and 2023, we believe accountability for reliable air travel equally lies with the U.S. government, which operates our nation’s air traffic control system," JetBlue added.
The airline urged the incoming administration to prioritize modernizing the Federal Aviation Administration's outdated air traffic control technology and air traffic controller staffing shortages that contribute to air traffic delays.