The United States Department of Transportation has penalized JetBlue Airways for $2 million for flight delays.
It is worth noting that in this case, this is the first time when the mentioned department fined the carrier for the specified reason.
According to the DOT, half of the fine amount will be paid to JetBlue Airways customers. In this case, those clients are meant which be affected by flight delays or disruptions. The other half of the mentioned amount will be sent directly to the United States Treasury. It is worth noting that the $500,000 must be paid within 60 days, and the remainder within one year after the first payment.
The department also announced investigations into other airlines due to what was described as unrealistic flight schedules. In this case, it means information that does not reflect the actual flight departure and arrival times.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the department will enforce the law against airlines with chronic delays or other unrealistic scheduling practices to protect healthy competition in commercial aviation and ensure fair treatment of passengers.
The DOT rules stipulate that a formulation such as a chronically delayed flight is used if it has not been flown at least 10 times in a month and arrives more than 30 minutes late more than 50% of the time. Flight cancellations are also taken into account as delays when calculated by the DOT.
The department found that JetBlue Airways between June 2022 and November 2023 had operated four chronically delayed flights at least 145 times.
As we have reported earlier, US Airlines Say Goodbye to Difficult Year.
