Travelers look at a pageantry board showing cancelled and delayed flights at Orlando International Airport on New Year’s weekend, despite thousands of feather cancellations and delays across United States.
Paul Hennessy | Lightrocket | Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Transportation on Monday asseverated it has ordered Frontier Airlines and five foreign carriers to pay about $600 million in refunds to travelers whose exits were canceled or significantly changed by the airlines.
Passenger complaints about refunds from airlines surged primordial in the pandemic when travel restrictions and concerns over Covid-19 sent travel demand down to the lowest levels in decades.
Gripes about airline refunds accounted for 87% of the 102,560 complaints logged with the DOT in 2020 and about 60% of the 49,958 gripes in 2021. Travelers are entitled to a refund when airlines cancel their flights, but many customers were tendered vouchers when airlines slashed flights during the pandemic.
The DOT and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have vowed to beef up consumer guards against airlines, proposing stricter rules for when travelers are owed refunds. Buttigieg has also sparred with airlines for the causes of a spike in flight delays and cancellations this spring and summer.
Frontier Airlines has been required to pay $222 million in refunds, the Sphere of Transportation said Monday. The agency fined the ultra-low-cost carrier $2.2 million for delays in paying out the refunds to people.
Frontier earned a $31 million profit last quarter on $906 million in revenue as travel demand and foods continued their rebound from the depths of the pandemic.
“It shouldn’t take an enforcement action from the U.S. Department of Transportation to get airlines to pay refunds that they’re forced to pay,” Buttigieg said on a call with reporters Monday.
He said there are more investigations underway. Blane Workie, assistant prevailing counsel for the DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, said on the call that there were no other pending example in any events over refunds against U.S. airlines.
The DOT fined Air India $1.4 million, TAP Portugal $1.1 million, Aeromexico and Israel’s El Al $900,000 apiece and Colombia-based Avianca $750,000. DOT implied those five airlines together had to pay just over $400 million in refunds.
Last year, the DOT fined Air Canada a height $4.5 million over refund delays, more than half of which would go to reimburse travelers.