DELTA AIR LINES, JETBLUE AIRWAYS, FRONTIER AIRLINES CONSENT ORDERS
January 29, 2017
On December 9, 2016 DOT issued three consent orders assessing civil penalties of $40,000, $40,000 and $60,000 against Delta Air Lines, Inc., JetBlue Airways Corporation, and Frontier Airlines, Inc., respectively.
Delta’s order stems from a failure by the airline to file an incident report within 30 days following a series of excessive tarmac delays. Unlike foreign airlines, U.S. carriers are required to file a detailed written incident description every time they experience a lengthy tarmac delay (in addition to the BTS Part 244 tarmac delay report that must be filed by foreign carriers). An investigation by the Department’s Enforcement Office revealed that Delta had inadvertently failed to file the required incident report for five lengthy tarmac delays.
JetBlue was fined for allegedly violating 14 C.F.R. Parts 250 and 259. An investigation by the Department’s Enforcement Office of JetBlue’s oversales practices revealed instances in which JetBlue did not provide appropriate compensation as required under its customer service plan and “Customer Bill of Rights”, in violation of DOT regulations.
Finally, DOT found that Frontier violated 14 C.F.R. 399.84(a) (the full-fare advertising rule) by advertising base fares, such as the “Buck Fares”, or “$1 + taxes and fees” in the same font size as the corresponding total fares. In particular, Frontier advertised base fares (without taxes and fees) in the same sized font as the total fare inclusive of taxes and fees. Frontier’s email advertisement was also found to be problematic in that the carrier advertised only the base fare (“a buck”) in the email subject line, in violation of the requirement that charges included within the single total price, which may be stated separately, may not be false or misleading and may not be displayed prominently.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com; 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com; 202-659-6665).
Share This Post
Authors
