The Department of Transportation (DOT) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Southwest Airlines alleging the company has “caused significant harm to its customers” owing to “chronically delayed flights.”
“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement on the lawsuit. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”
The lawsuit was filed jointly with the Department of Justice in the U.S. Northern District of California.
In its investigation, the DOT said it found that in 2022, a flight from Chicago to Oakland, California, arrived late “on 19 of 25 trips by an average of over an hour.”…