DOT CONSENT ORDERS
November 28, 2016
Silver Airways LLC- Silver Airways was fined $25,000 for failing to timely process consumer refund requests as required by the Consumer Credit Protection Act and Regulation Z of the board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the statutory prohibition against unfair and deceptive trade practices, 49 U.S.C. § 41712.
The Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings found that during 2014 and 2015, Silver Airways did not issue refunds to certain consumers who made purchases by credit cards within the specified time limitations in the regulations and the carrier’s contract of carriage and customer plan. Under Part 374 and Regulation Z, if a refund is due for tickets purchased with a credit card, an airline carrier must send a credit card statement to the credit-card issuer within seven business days of receipt of all documentation for the refund request. If a refund is due for a ticket purchased with cash, the carrier must provide the refund within twenty business days of receipt of all documentation for the request.
Philippine Airlines, Inc. (PAL)- PAL was fined $20,000 for failing to submit accurate data in its Part 244 tarmac delay report.
Part 244 requires covered carriers to file a Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Form 244 “Tarmac Delay Report” for each month in which there is a tarmac delay of three hours or more. The data is then published and made available to the public in the Department’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report (ATCR), which includes all regularly scheduled international flights with tarmac delays of four hours or more.
On May 17, 2015, a PAL flight experienced mechanical difficulty requiring maintenance prior to its departure from JFK and reported a tarmac delay of 270 hours in its original certified BTS Form 244 filing. Following an investigation by the Enforcement Office into the circumstances of the delay, PAL provided data that the tarmac delay was 300 minutes. Upon reexamining its data, PAL concluded it had filed an erroneous report and the actual delay was no more than 200 minutes. Their inaccurate filing wasted DOT resources because Enforcement Office had to initiate an investigation and the ATCR had to be revised.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6665).
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