MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The U.S. Department of Transportation has never fined an airline for chronic delays - well, not until today. JetBlue has agreed to pay a $2 million penalty. From June 2022 to November 2023, it operated four flights up and down the East Coast, flights that were delayed at least 145 times. Alison Sider reports on air travel for the Wall Street Journal and has been following this story. Hi.
ALISON SIDER: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
KELLY: Define chronically delayed.
SIDER: A chronically delayed flight, according to the transportation department, is a flight that operates at least 10 times in a month and is delayed by a half an hour or more at least 50% of the time.
KELLY: And is this a new rule or an existing one that they just weren't previously enforcing?
SIDER: The transportation department has, for a long time, considered unrealistic scheduling to be an unfair and deceptive practice, except only very rarely has it actually penalized an airline for engaging in that practice. It's been a couple of decades since any airline was penalized for this at all. And this is the first time that chronic delays have been considered a sign of unrealistic scheduling.
KELLY: And do we know why now and why JetBlue?
SIDER: Well, the transportation department has been concerned for a couple of years about airlines. And, really, under the Biden administration, the department has tried to take a tougher line with airlines on a number of fronts to try and beef up consumer protection. And since the COVID-19 pandemic, as airlines were reemerging, anyone who tried to travel remembers it was a pretty rocky period with lots of cancellations and delays - you know, 2021, 2022, into 2023. And the transportation department became quite concerned. It told airlines that it would be investigating whether the carriers had just scheduled more flights than they could realistically operate.
KELLY: OK. So JetBlue, as we said - they have agreed to pay this $2 million penalty. What happens with that money? Does any of it go to people whose flights were delayed or canceled?
SIDER: Yes, actually. Half the money is going to go to the treasury - a million dollars just as a fine. The other half another million dollars is to be used to compensate passengers - either people who were affected by the chronically delayed flights or, you know, future delays in the next year. So, you know, there'd be vouchers of at least $75.
KELLY: I do wonder - $2 million is a lot of money for most of us. Is it a lot for an airline like JetBlue?
SIDER: Yeah. It's not that it's such a huge amount of money, but I think it's more what it symbolizes. It's the department telling airlines that chronic delays that go on and on for several months are not going to be looked at as something that's beyond the airline's control, you know, that it's - you know, if there's a problem with a flight, the airline needs to, you know, fix it or stop operating the flight. Otherwise, there are going to be consequences.
KELLY: So we reached out, as I'm sure you did, to JetBlue for comment on this. They gave us a statement in which they said they've spent tens of millions of dollars trying to reduce delays, that they have seen improvements in 2024. They also said, quote, "we believe accountability for reliable air travel equally lies with the U.S. government, which operates our nation's air traffic control system." Help me understand that. Is the current state of federal air traffic control linked to flight delays, as JetBlue is saying there?
SIDER: Yes. There have been delays - lots of delays linked to issues within air traffic control staffing issues. And especially this is coming up in New York, and it has come up in Florida. And those are where the problematic flights that JetBlue had. You know, I think the airlines have felt that they've been sort of unfairly singled out at a time when air traffic control, which is run by the federal government, is having its own issues.
KELLY: Alison Sider with The Wall Street Journal sharing her reporting on the fine levied by the Department of Transportation on the airline JetBlue. Thank you, Alison.
SIDER: Thanks so much.
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