Southwest Airlines could face heavy fines for ruining the Christmas season for 1000’s of travelers by canceling flights over the vacation weekend, federal officials warned Wednesday.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Congressional leaders have called on low-cost airlines to reimburse and canopy expenses after the Dallas-based company grounded greater than 14,500 flights since Friday – including greater than 2,500 on Wednesday.
“They should ensure that these stranded passengers get where they’re presupposed to and that they get the best compensation – not only for the flight itself,” Buttigieg told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
Buttigieg described the travel chaos within the Southwest as unprecedented during his tenure, and said the department would “make a unprecedented effort” to make sure passengers are compensated for his or her troubles.
Southwest’s customer support plan stipulates that it’ll provide vouchers and accommodation within the event of delays or cancellations “under our control”.
“We’ll honor legitimate requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel and alternative transportation,” a Southwest spokesman told The Post on Wednesday.
Buttigieg said the airline was committed to exceeding the required level of customer support.
“To revive those relationships with its customers, Southwest might want to not only keep them financially whole, but in addition discover a solution to truly rebuild trust,” said Buttigieg. “They promised me they might. I need to see what exactly which means.”
![Southwest Airlines](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/southwest-221228-57.jpg?w=1024)
Last month, the Department of Transportation fined six airlines — including a $2.2 million penalty to Frontier — for what it described as “extreme delays” in paying customer refunds.
Potential repercussions could also arise from Capitol Hill. Meaning. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of the Senate Commerce Committee argued that injured airmen were owed “substantial monetary compensation for disrupting their vacation plans” that ought to transcend ticket refunds and coupons.
“Southwest plans to pay a dividend of $428 million next yr – the corporate can afford to do good to the consumers it has hurt. Southwest should focus totally on its customers stranded at airports and stuck in countless limbo,” the senators said.
![Pete Buttigieg](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/pete-buttigieg-221228-54.jpg?w=1024)
The watchdog group blamed Southwest’s lack of investment in updated technology for slow efforts to answer flight disruptions attributable to severe weather across a lot of the country.
The Accountable.US group, the so-called “Southwest’s cancellation crisis is a self-made problem” after it selected to “spend $5.6 billion on stock buybacks within the 3 years leading as much as the pandemic relatively than investing in infrastructure to raised prepare for extreme weather events like this week.”
The group said Southwest “even restored its dividends earlier this month, the primary major airline to accomplish that post-pandemic.”
![Southwest Airlines](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/southwest-221228-59.jpg?w=1024)
“Southwest Airlines has taken a dangerous gamble that massive layoffs and spending billions of dollars handing out to investors as an alternative of fixing infrastructure will deliver record profits,” Accountable.US CEO Kyle Herrig said in a press release. “The airline lost that bet quite a bit, and now it’s their customers who’ve left the value, including 1000’s stuck in the midst of holiday travel.”
Southwest Airlines shares fell greater than 2% on Wednesday. The corporate’s shares have fallen about 25% since January.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan publicly apologized for the mess on Tuesday.
![Southwest Airlines](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/southwest-221228-60.jpg?w=1024)
“We’re optimistic that we’ll be back heading in the right direction before next week,” said Jordan.
Nonetheless, the wave of cancellations could have been averted if Jordan had heeded a warning from Southwestern leadership a number of days before the beginning of weekend holiday travel.
![Southwest Airlines](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/southwest-221228-61.jpg?w=1024)
Chris Johnson, Southwest’s vice chairman of ground operations, sent out a memo to ramp staff on Dec. 21, declaring an “operational emergency” at his Denver base after an “unusually large number” of staff failed to point out up for work, in response to Bloomberg news.